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Everyone Says I Love You

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Everyone Says I Love You
Theatrical release poster
Directed byWoody Allen
Written byWoody Allen
Produced byRobert Greenhut
Starring
CinematographyCarlo Di Palma
Edited bySusan E. Morse
Music byDick Hyman
Distributed byMiramax Films
Release date
  • December 8, 1996 (1996-12-08)
Running time
101 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$20 million[2]
Box office$9.8 million[2]

Everyone Says I Love You is a 1996 American musical romantic comedy film written and directed by Woody Allen. It stars Alan Alda, Allen, Drew Barrymore, Lukas Haas, Goldie Hawn, Gaby Hoffmann, Natasha Lyonne, Edward Norton, Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts, Tim Roth, and David Ogden Stiers. Set in New York City, Venice, and Paris, it features singing by actors not usually known for musical roles. The film was a commercial failure, but is among the more critically successful of Allen's films, with Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert even ranking it as one of Allen's best.[3]

The emotions of an extended upper-class family in Manhattan are followed in song in New York City, Paris, and Venice. Many characters act, interact, and sing in each city. They include young lovers Holden and Skylar, Skylar's parents, Bob and Steffi, Steffi's ex-husband, Joe, Steffi and Joe's daughter, Djuna "DJ", a lady Joe meets named Von, and a recently released prison inmate, Charles Ferry.

Plot

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Skylar and Holden are an upper-class Manhattan couple ("Just You, Just Me"). Holden enlists DJ, Skylar’s younger sister, to help him choose an expensive diamond engagement ring ("My Baby Just Cares for Me"). Skylar wants a "take-charge" kind of guy ("I'm a Dreamer, Aren't We All"). Holden’s romantic gesture, at DJ’s urging, backfires when Skylar swallows the ring he slipped into her parfait, resulting in a trip to the ER ("Makin' Whoopee").

Bob and Steffi Dandridge, liberal Democratic lawyers ("Looking at You") who have a blended family from previous marriages, are aghast at having a Republican son, Scott, who wants criminals taken off the street and disapproves of Steffi’s work rehabilitating felons. Steffi, who volunteers with the American Civil Liberties Union ("He was an abused child who made one mistake."), brings to the engagement party one of her causes, Charles, who scares guests with accounts of prison stabbings. At first Skylar is alarmed by Charles’s aggressive passes ("If I Had You") but then falls under his spell ("I’ve never been kissed by a sociopath before."), breaking up with Holden.

Steffi and Bob are friendly with Steffi’s neurotic ex-husband, Joe, who lives in Paris, and has just broken up with his latest drug-using nymphomaniac girlfriend ("I’m through with Love"). Steffi wants to fix Joe up with a more suitable woman, but Joe is still hung up on Steffi.

On vacation with her father, Joe, in Venice, Italy, DJ and her friend, whose mother is a psychologist, listen through a hole in the wall on the clientele’s therapy sessions. Von, an art historian, relates to the therapist that she is discontented with her husband, longing for romance and discussing her fantasies. DJ suggests Joe "run into" Von jogging and then coaches Joe on how to woo her by faking interest in art, music, travel, African daisies, and a hastily bought Parisian garret; setting up "coincidental" meetings at a museum and a concert. Convinced she has met the man of her dreams ("All My Life"), the unsuspecting Von leaves her husband for Joe.

DJ falls for a gondolier and plans to drop out of college to marry him—until she meets her next "flame" a student at Columbia ("Cuddle up a Little Closer, Lovey Mine"). Until she falls for a rapper in New York. Until she falls for a dashing Parisian.

Competitive sisters Lane and Laura, DJ’s half-sisters, both have crushes on a local lad, heir to the Vandermost millions, but 14-year-old Laura is heartbroken when Vandermost falls for Lane ("I’m Through with Love").

Grandpa, an 88-year-old with dementia, occasionally wanders off, corralled by Freda the maid, who DJ jokingly claims was Hitler’s maid at Berchtesgaden ("It’s Bavarian pasta, it doesn’t need any sauce; Italian pasta needs sauce. The Italians were weak!"). At foot fetishist Grandpa’s funeral, the corpses at the chapel sing and dance to "Enjoy Yourself (It's Later than You Think)".

Skylar encourages ex-con Charles to study law, but he has other plans, involving the unwitting Skylar in a grocery store robbery with his gang. Begging to be let out of the getaway car, Skylar succeeds in fleeing and eventually reconciles at a Halloween Party with a forgiving Holden ("Chiquita Banana"). This time Skylar swallows the engagement ring Holden has slipped in a box of Cracker Jack.

Scott is diagnosed with a brain tumor and has successful surgery. He immediately resigns from the Young Republicans Club and starts to espouse Left-wing causes.

Having lived out all her fantasies with "the man of her dreams," Von no longer yearns for them; she leaves Joe to return to her husband.

The family goes to Paris for Christmas and attends a Groucho Marx-themed New Years party (Hooray for Captain Spaulding). When Bob comes down with a cold, Steffi attends with Joe and they reminisce, acknowledging that although they didn’t work out ("I’m Through With Love"), they still have feelings for each other. Although Steffi loves Bob "wholeheartedly," she and Joe kiss while accepting the boundaries of their mutually supportive relationship. Steffi encourages Joe to find someone who will make him happy. The family dances to "Everyone Says I love You" as DJ falls for a dance partner in a Harpo Marx costume.

Cast

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Music

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The film uses classic songs for each scene, in some cases with unexpected dance routines.

  1. "Just You, Just Me" (Jesse Greer, Raymond Klages) — Edward Norton
  2. "My Baby Just Cares for Me" (Walter Donaldson, Gus Kahn) — Edward Norton/Natasha Lyonne
  3. "Recurrence/I'm a Dreamer, Aren't We All" (Ray Henderson, Lew Brown, B.G. DeSylva) — Dick Hyman/Olivia Hayman
  4. "Makin' Whoopee" (Donaldson, Kahn) — Tim Jerome
  5. "Venetian Scenes/I'm Through with Love" (Kahn, Matt Malneck, Fud Livingston) — Dick Hyman/Woody Allen
  6. "All My Life" (Sam Stept, Sidney Mitchell) — Julia Roberts
  7. "Just You, Just Me" (Salsa Version) (Greer, Klages) — Dick Hyman and the New York Studio Players
  8. "Cuddle Up a Little Closer" (Karl Hoschna, Otto Harbach) — Billy Crudup/Sanjeev Ramabhadran
  9. "Looking at You" (Cole Porter) — Alan Alda
  10. "Recurrence/If I Had You" (Ted Shapiro, Jimmy Campbell, Reg Connelly) — Dick Hyman/Tim Roth
  11. "Enjoy Yourself (It's Later than You Think)" (Carl Sigman, Herb Magidson) — Patrick Crenshaw
  12. "Chiquita Banana" (Leonard McKenzie, Garth Montgomery, William Wirges) — Christy Carlson Romano
  13. "Hooray for Captain Spaulding/Vive Le Capitaine Spaulding" (Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby, Philippe Videcoq) — The Helen Miles Singers
  14. "I'm Through with Love" (Kahn, Malneck, Livingston) — Goldie Hawn/Edward Norton
  15. "Everyone Says I Love You" (Kalmar, Ruby) — The Helen Miles Singers[4]

Most of the performers sing in their own voices, with two exceptions: Goldie Hawn, who was told by Allen to intentionally sing worse because she sang too well to be believable as a normal person just breaking into song, and Drew Barrymore, who convinced Allen that her singing was too awful even for the "realistic singing voice" concept he was going for. Her voice was dubbed by Olivia Hayman.

The title song was written by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby and was used as a recurring theme song in the Marx Brothers film Horse Feathers (1932). Allen is a well-known Groucho Marx fan. Marx's theme song from Animal Crackers (1930) "Hooray for Captain Spaulding" is featured, sung in French by a chorus of Groucho Marxes. The songs, film score, and subsequent album were recorded, mixed, and co-produced by Dick Hyman and Roy Yokelson.

Reception

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Box office

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On its opening weekend, the film grossed $131,678 from three theaters, with an average of $43,892 per theater.[5] It ended with its run with $9.8 million.[2]

Critical response

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The film was well received. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 77% based on 44 reviews, with an average rating of 7.2/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "A likable, infectious musical, Woody Allen's Everyone Says I Love You is sometimes uneven but always toe-tapping and fun."[6] Janet Maslin wrote a strongly positive review in The New York Times, describing the film as "a delightful and witty compendium of [Allen's] favorite things."[7] Among the film's strongest detractors was Jonathan Rosenbaum, who described it as "creepy" and claimed, "this characterless world of Manhattan-Venice-Paris, where love consists only of self-validation, and political convictions of any kind are attributable to either hypocrisy or a brain condition, the me-first nihilism of Allen's frightened worldview is finally given full exposure, and it's a grisly thing to behold."[8]

Accolades

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The film was nominated for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy at the 54th Golden Globe Awards.

References

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  1. ^ "Everyone Says I Love You (12)". British Board of Film Classification. January 21, 1997. Archived from the original on March 6, 2016. Retrieved November 5, 2015.
  2. ^ a b c "Everyone Says I Love You (1996)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved June 16, 2024.
  3. ^ Ebert, Roger (January 17, 1997). "Everyone Says I Love You". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on November 7, 2017. Retrieved November 1, 2017 – via RogerEbert.com.
  4. ^ Harvey, Adam (2007). The Soundtracks of Woody Allen: A Complete Guide to the Songs and Music in Every Film, 1969–2005. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. p. 54. ISBN 978-0-7864-2968-4.
  5. ^ "Everyone Says I Love You (1996) – Domestic Weekend". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved June 6, 2024.
  6. ^ "Everyone Says I Love You". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved January 20, 2022.
  7. ^ Maslin, Janet (December 6, 1996). "When Everyone Sings, Just for the Joy of It". The New York Times. Archived from the original on May 26, 2015. Retrieved June 16, 2024.
  8. ^ Miner, Michael (January 13, 1997). "Everyone Says I Love You". Chicago Reader. Archived from the original on June 9, 2011. Retrieved May 1, 2011.
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