Like most gagmen who earn their living by making fun of people, Woody Allen can recognize the ridiculous in everyone but himself….

Allen's strained seriousness and inadvertent humor are … on display in his latest film, Manhattan…. As always, his writing and directing are aimed at marketing his own virtue, or rather that of his familiar persona, here christened Isaac Davis….

Allen's persona was appealing in the past because he was such a loser; he reassured audiences about their own inadequacies—that nothing succeeds like failure. Beginning with Annie Hall, however, the filmmaker—perhaps sensitive to the declining status of "losers" and "victims" in our egocentric age—changed his formula. Now, winning seems to be all there is for his one-time schlemiel, who is unchanged in other respects. (p. 21)

[Davis scores with Mary Wilke] …, the on-again off-again mistress of his married best friend…. Because Isaac and Mary hate each...