Once a year it seems we're treated to another movie from Woody Allen. This year it's The Curse of the Jade Scorpion set in New York in 1940.
Woody plays C.W. Briggs, an insurance investigator who's almost as good as he thinks he is. But he's running into trouble at work with efficiency expert Betty Ann Fitzgerald (Helen Hunt). They trade insults in classic style. One night at an office party at a nightclub Briggs and Betty Ann are hypnotised by Voltan (David Ogden Stiers), who convinces them they are actually in love, much to the amusement of their colleagues and particularly their boss Chris Magruder (Dan Ackroyd), with whom Betty Ann is having an affair.
But Voltan has a sinister agenda. He's programmed Briggs and Betty Ann to respond to certain words so he can use them as jewel thieves, and it's while investigating one of these mysterious 'inside jobs' that Briggs meets Laura Kensington (Charlize Theron).
This is classic Woody Allen with Woody combining Humphrey Bogart's casual arrogance with his own self-deprecation and with Charlize Theron doing a very good Lauren Bacall. Helen Hunt, Rosalind Russell maybe?
The film is stamped with an era of filmmaking and with Woody's usual excellent choice of music, Santo Loquasto's design, Suzanne McCabe's gorgeous costumes and Zhao Fei's warm, lush cinematography it's a deliciously self-aware recreation of an era and a genre.
