Woody Allen, absenting himself from the cast of Melinda and Melinda, is nonetheless its protagonist: his neuroses, his obsessions, his New York-centric world-view, are the subject of the film, and the actors' lines are echoes of his own sputtering utterances in classics like Annie Hall and Manhattan. Those films, in which lust and id run amok, were made more than a quarter-century ago, yet Allen seems none the wiser now-an exasperating, if not downright embarrassing, state of affairs that viewers familiar with his oeuvre will quickly note in his latest work.

In Melinda and Melinda, two playwrights over dinner consider the dramatic possibilities of a roughly sketched scenario, wherein a beautiful young woman arrives unannounced at a dinner party. Is her story best told comically or tragically? One playwright finds that life is a farce, and tragedy a much-needed dose of cod liver oil for the masses. The other playwright, Sy (Wallace Shawn), believes life is a tragedy from which comedy is our only escape. It seems natural to assume that with such a perspective, Sy is meant as a stand-in for Allen. If so, he's one of two.

The second stand-in, the one playing Allen's old part (a bumbling, sexually eager worrier who seems destined to come in last), is Will Ferrell as Hobie. Though Radha Mitchell as both Melindas, comedic and tragic, has the biggest role, it's Ferrell, appearing only in one story, who carries the movie. He's our reward for watching, excelling as he does at portraying boyish naivet?? and yearning and provoking laughter with a simple widening of his eyes. (Come to think of it, he's also a great coquette.) Ferrell fully inhabits his part. Because of his physique, though, or perhaps something less tangible, he feels too solid and grounded to be a true double for Allen. Woody Allen as an actor is a bundle of nerves, a twitching body and restless brain, neither of which can slow down enough for earthiness or solidity.

The "tragic" half of the film fails utterly. To be fair, it would be difficult for any director to pull off something tragic alongside something comedic, especially when cutting back and forth between the two perspectives. But Allen's boredom with sincerity doesn't help, and the sensuousness he lacks may be an indispensable aspect of tragedy.

Rampant narcissism doesn't win much sympathy, either, at least with me. The characters in Melinda and Melinda couldn't give a damn about anyone else, and I couldn't give a damn about them-with the aforementioned exception of Hobie. Laurel (Chlo?½ Sevigny) begins to take shape as a sensitive, serious young woman, reminiscent of Mariel Hemingway at her sternest, only to lapse, by turns, into crassness and an embarrassing lack of discernment (falling for a guy's line about seeing her soul).

The "comedic" half of the film, which one would expect to be the stronger, is like an exhausted lap around an all-too-familiar track. "Of course we communicate," snaps Hobie's disinterested wife (Amanda Peet), "now can we not talk about it?" Yes, let's do move on to another subject.