Woody Allen's new film Melinda And Melinda is a good one. More specifically, as an examination of the fine line between comedy and drama, it is alternately funny and moving, and that it tries to contrast the two is an interesting approach. And even more specifically: that it never is anything more than interesting - that it is never really insightful, that it doesn't fully explore and exploit the contrast or pose any new ideas - is its one great fault, and is what keeps me from immediately pronouncing the onset of Allen's third renaissance, after his last period of great work in the mid-to-late nineties.

The set-up for the film is a dinner conversation between two playwrights, portrayed by Wallace Shawn and Larry Pine. They are discussing the nature of life. Shawn, who writes comedies, thinks our existence is ultimately tragic; Pine holds the converse opinion, and to prove his point, he tells a sad story about a young woman named Melinda. Of course, Shawn sees the scenario as comedic, and so the debate continues and the representation of their dueling narratives makes up the body of the film.

Now, one only has to see Wallace Shawn engaging in a discussion at a candlelit Manhattan diner to expect something deep and philosophical (particularly when his partner bears such a close resemblance to Andre Gregory); but unfortunately, their argument is almost comically elementary, and their eventual conclusion - that it is all a matter of perception - is something any writer worth his or her salt would know from the get-go.

The shallowness of their discussion is somewhat representative of the entire film; it doesn't really explore the subtle differences between comedy and tragedy but is instead content to merely contrast two somewhat similar stories that share one constant: the character of Melinda, played by Rhada Mitchell. In both instances, she crashes a dinner party of a troubled young married couple (Chloe Sevigny and Johnny Lee Miller, tragically, and Amanda Peet and Will Ferrell, hysterically), deals with a miserable past, tries to find love, and serves as a catalyst for tears and laughter in the lives of everyone she comes across. Other common points include classical piano, alcoholism and suicide, although many of the specifics change drastically from story to story.

It is perhaps natural that the tragic section will be of the most interest to Allen's fans. He hasn't indulged his talent for writing serious drama for nearly twenty years, and indeed, many (including myself) consider his masterpiece to be the painful, piercing Interiors, which harkens all the way back to 1978. What the dark half of Melinda proves is that Allen is still as great a writer as he ever was - in the titular character, he creates a truly tragic heroine, to whom he bequeaths some wrenching monologues - but that years of directing comedy has dulled his dramatic instincts behind the camera. The style-free style he's become so comfortable with, consisting mostly of lengthy wide shots, is perfectly suited to the witty repartee of his comedies, but it is not appropriate for intimate, probing scenes of inner turmoil. The Bergman-esque compositions of Interiors are nowhere to be found here, and the burnished but flat staging (photographed by veteran cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond) works against Allen's writing, and the performances of everyone except Mitchell, whose eyes burn so intensely that even a wide shot of her might as well be an extreme close-up. Her dramatic monologues are riveting; when other characters are on screen, however, it sometimes becomes hard to distinguish between the tragic and the comic.

That's the point, though, isn't it? Too blur the lines, to allow room for perception? Yes, but I think such blurring would be better in terms of content, not style. A bolder, more challenging approach to the same idea would have been to film the same script twice (either one would do), using style and tone (and perhaps the alternating casts) to provide the distinction, while the story and the dialogue remain the same. This would have been difficult, and perhaps Allen isn't up to or interested in such experimentation.

So instead, we have a comedy that is not altogether unlike many of Allen's comedies of late; acceptable but not outstanding, with the laughs often depending on your appreciation of the cast (I, for one, love both Will Ferrell and Amanda Peet); and a drama that is painful but not as devastating as it should have been; and neither reveal anything particularly revelatory, but are instead mostly enjoyable on their own terms. Both contain their fair share of brilliance - Ferrell's hijinks with a bathrobe caught in a door in one, a striking, almost frightening use of Bartok's 4th in the other, Mitchell's performances in both - which serves as a reminder of exactly what Allen is capable of. Like his last film, Anything Else, Melinda And Melinda is a suggestion of something greater, if unfortunately not great itself.

Perhaps that suggestion is enough at this point; while some may accuse Allen of having lost his creative spark years ago, I hold the opinion that he is in the same league as Martin Scorcese, Spike Lee, Oliver Stone - filmmakers whose bodies of work has left them invulnerable to questions of relevance. One goes to see their films without question, because what they do next is always interesting, even if it's not entirely successful. And in this case - well, I mentioned that Melinda And Melinda contains moments of brilliance, and amidst those is the very last shot in the film, which serves two purposes: it makes a strong point, both narratively and stylistically; and, perhaps more importantly, it leaves one all the more eager to see what Allen will do to follow it up.