APROPOS OF NOTHING

The director offers his side of the story.

The besieged Allen tells all—repeatedly and angrily—about his side of the relationship with his former lover’s adopted daughter. Part of the book is an ambling reminiscence, much of which we’ve heard before (vide the opening of Annie Hall), about family life in World War II–era Brooklyn. “Delusional as she was,” writes the author of his elderly mother, “at the end she never lost her ability to kvetch, which she had raised to an art form.” Another part comprises Allen’s reflections on filmmaking, which students of the form may find interesting. When the author isn’t airing complaints about money (“I was probably the lowest paid filmmaker of my generation”), he turns in a few craft notes on his belief in moving fast and inexpensively, with a fixed rule: “no editing till the shooting ends.” Those craft notes, too, end in complaint. His last film went unseen in the U.S. (“fortunately, the rest of the world remains sane”), and the one he’d like to make is proving difficult due to cancel culture. In the third part of the book, Allen repudiates the charge, among others, of child molestation. Unwilling to acknowledge that Mia Farrow may have had cause for anger because of his relationship with college-aged Soon-Yi Previn, Allen protests that he “was able to liberate Soon-Yi from a terrible situation and provide her with an opportunity to flower and realize her potential.” Page after page, the author declares his innocence in the face of a legal and cultural machine arrayed against him. The three aspects of the book blend uneasily throughout, and anyone hoping for intriguing biographical details must wade through ceaseless fuming (“Falsely accused, hideous press, enormous legal expense”) to get to them, leaving us to wonder what happened to the sharp-witted, funny author of Getting Even and Without Feathers.

For die-hard fans only.