Woody Allen’s attempt at an old-fashioned musical is hit-or-miss, music-wise (Julia Roberts and Allen can barely croak out their offerings, and Drew Barrymore was so frightened by her ballad that she had to be dubbed by a ringer), but it offers no shortage of laughs or stars. The plot is piffle, tracing the romantic lives of a wealthy and eccentric Manhattan family of the sort last seen in 1930s screwball comedies. Still, the cast consists mostly of romantic-comedy pros—Allen, Barrymore, Roberts, Goldie Hawn, Alan Alda, Natalie Portman, Gaby Hoffman—along with some Method pros (Edward Norton, Billy Crudup, Tim Roth) whose intensity pays off surprisingly well in comic terms. The movie also made a star out of its narrator; before Everyone, Natasha Lyonne (as Allen’s boy-crazy teenage daughter) had been best known as Opal, one of the kids who frequented Pee-wee’s Playhouse. It’s a movie full of shameless clichés so freshly executed that they yield only delight.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lcd3v3xpcMw]