Autumn in New York 1/2*
(2000)
Starring: Winona Ryder, Richard Gere
Directed by: Joan Chen
Screenplay: Allison Burnett

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm really getting tired of movies in which someone teaches Richard Gere the true meaning of love. Most obviously, this was the plot of Pretty Woman, but it's also been the plot of just about every movie he's ever done. (I am exaggerating, of course, but I am allowed.) Now, we are cursed with the wretched Autumn in New York, where poor Winona Ryder is pressed into service.

Old Man Richard, that Old Man Richard, he just keeps rollin' along . . .

I should mention that when this movie was released, a number of people pointed out that it begged for a Reverse Gender-Age Equivalent, so I am happy to provide one. The RGAE for Richard Gere and Winona Ryder is Meryl Streep and Kid Rock. Now that's a movie you'd want to see, admit it. [In fact, I have it on good authority that Kid Rock actually asked Meryl to star with him in the sequel to Autumn in New York, to be called Springtime in My [bleep]in' [bleep], but Meryl declined. Imagine that.]

At any rate, this time Richard breaks his pattern of playing jerk-lawyers (Primal Fear) and jerk-journalists (Runaway Bride) in order to stretch as an actor and play a jerk-restauranteur by the name of Will. No one likes Will, and no one should like Will, because Will is a pompous, arrogant creep who isn't nearly interesting enough to be fawned over by the likes of Jill Hennessy, late of TV's Law and Order, who is entirely wasted here as one of his on-and-off girlfriends. One day, the odious Will is in his fancy restaurant when he notices a birthday party going on, apparently being conducted in honor of a young woman named Charlotte (Ryder), who is coincidentally the daughter of an old friend of Will's. Charlotte's grandma (Elaine Stritch, Elaine Stritch, why are you in this movie?) doesn't think much of Will, but Will is clearly besotted, especially when he learns that Charlotte made the party hats everyone is wearing.

A word here about those hats: These are not good hats. They are not interesting, artistic, stylish hats. They are hats that look like they were made during an afternoon of arts and crafts at a Y camp. A Y camp for very, very stupid children. They are meant to be whimsical hats, of course, in order to convey the general sense of whimsy with which the script surrounds Charlotte, the better to bodily drag tears from our ducts later when we find out, of course, inevitably, that Charlotte is in fact Very, Very Sick. (I do not consider that plot point to be revealing much. They gave it away in every commercial.)

The part of the movie we like to call, "Yeah, whatever."

Will concocts an elaborate hat-related scheme to reconnect with Charlotte, so we have to sit through an interminable series of contrivances in order to arrive at the following: they go out on a date. She wears a white dress -- that would be the Low-Cut White Dress of Girls Who Give It Up But Remain Virgins In Our Hearts, in case you are keeping score at home. They kiss. She is irresistibly attracted to this grizzled misanthrope, for whatever reason. Canoodling ensues.

The dreaded complication arises, of course, when Charlotte reveals that she has a horrible disease (kinda like a "heart stripe," and if you get that reference, you know you are as pathetic as I am) that will soon finish her off. She wants no heroic efforts to save her life, she just wants to die with dignity while having a lot of sex with old men. (Okay, I made up the last part.) You can take it from here -- he struggles with his need to control the situation, they break up and reunite a few times, blah blah blah. She gets paler and paler.

Finally, he has an appropriate relationship

Meanwhile, Will reconnects with his long-lost daughter (Vera Farmiga), which is the movie's way of showing us that Charlotte, though not destined to reach the age of twenty-four, can nonetheless be happy because she has had a permanent effect on one sad and lonely old jerk. I know that would be a great consolation to me, if I were in her shoes.

The problem with a movie like this is that it can only go one of two ways: if she dies, then the movie ends with a trite, obvious, overdone payoff to which we feel begged to respond. If she does not die, then the movie ends with no payoff at all. There isn't a genuine emotion anywhere in the script, and I never believed for one moment that these people even liked each other, let alone were in love. The entire story has a creepy Oedipal undertone, as if Gere is sleeping with the daughter he never knew. I don't think I'm exaggerating or overstating the case if I say, "eeew."

Get a job, sha na na na . . .

Winona Ryder is a very lovely and talented actress, but this part has no substance for her to work with. Charlotte is purely a symbol, a shameless entry into the creaky old dichotomy of women as angels or hookers. She has a sort of bland serenity, as if she has come to understand everything about life through being sick, but she has no spark, no apparent personality, and evidently no job other than her life as a haberdasher. If all she does all day is make pipe-cleaner hats, how interesting can she really be? I'm serious about this, actually -- it does great damage to characters not to give them anything interesting and adult in which they can be involved. An adult with no work life is a strange adult, indeed.

Richard Gere does nothing, and in fact can do nothing, with the part of Will. You have seen him do this a million times. You know how he will play every scene, you know how he will respond to every situation. There is nothing new here for you, for me, or for these actors.

The bottom line

You shouldn't see this movie unless the only alternative is death by firing squad. Even then, please choose carefully.