Hollywood ending

Hollywood Ending (distributed in Spanish as Un finale made in Hollywood in Spain, La mirada de los otros in Argentina, and El ciego in Mexico) is a 2002 American comedy film written and directed by Woody Allen, who also plays the main character. It tells the story of a once famous film director who suffers from hysterical blindness due to the intense pressure of directing.

Plot

Val Waxman (Woody Allen) is a neurotic, once-famous, forgotten film director who walks the streets of New York alone, waiting for a new opportunity to salvage his film career.

Failure has landed him in the world of advertising, but he desperately wants to get back on the movie set with the help of friends and his agent, who are looking to get involved in the production of a new movie to move forward.

Despite the fact that she left him for a big film producer and Hollywood millionaire, his ex-wife (Téa Leoni) continues to trust his talent and proposes that he direct a new big-budget movie that her boyfriend would produce, but just before start shooting, Val goes blind. Advised by his friend and agent, All, he decides not to miss this opportunity, to go ahead with the complicity of his ex-wife and her agent, and to hide his blindness from everyone so that he can continue with the film... even if he cannot see or a scene.

Cast

• Woody Allen as Val Waxman.
• Tea Leoni like Ellie.
• George Hamilton like Ed.
• Treat Williams like Hal.
• Debra Messing as Lori.
• Mark Rydell as Al Hack.
• Marian Seldes like Alexandra.
• Tiffani Thiessen as Sharon Bates.
• Greg Mottola as Director Assistant.
• Fred Melamed like Pappas.
• Neal Huff as Commercial A.D.
• Barney Cheng as a Translator.
• Jodie Markell like Andrea Ford.
• Isaac Mizrahi like Elio Sebastian.
• Peter Gerety as a psychiatrist.
• Aaron Stanford as Actor.
• Erica Leerhsen as Actress.
• Joe Rigano as a Projectionist.
• Mark Webber as Tony Waxman.

Production

Haskell Wexler was the original cinematographer, but was fired by Woody Allen after a week of filming, as they could not agree on how to film certain shots. Wedigo von Schultzendorff replaced Wexler.

Reception

The film received mixed reviews from critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that the film received 47% positive reviews, based on 130 reviews. Metacritic reported that the film had an average score of 46 from 100, based on 37 reviews.

The film was a financial flop in American theaters, with ticket sales under $5 million, and a worldwide gross of only $14.8 million.

It was screened out of competition at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival.

Film critic Bryant Frazer thought the film suffered from poor editing. What's more frustrating is that Hollywood Ending could have been a little better than it actually is. At 114 minutes, it has a decisive lack of the brevity that used to characterize Allen's films—even the Bergman-inspired superseries. What's worse, his time seems off-beat—the filmmaker once famous for cutting his films to the utter bone now gives us overly long, rambling scenes with performers who almost seem to be improvising his dialogue. I ran to the Internet Movie Database to investigate, and found out what may be the problem—Susan Morse is gone. Morse, the editor who had worked with Allen since Manhattan in 1979 and who became a true soldier at the time of the jazzy montage that characterized Deconstructing Harry, was allegedly a victim of budget cuts within the ranks".

In 2016, film critics Robbie Collin and Tim Robey of The Daily Telegraph called Hollywood Ending Woody Allen's worst film.