Everyone Says I Love You

Everyone Says I Love You is a kaleidoscopic portrait of a large and wealthy New York family, all of whom are familiar with the ways and byways of love. The teenage girl D.J., who has a voracious appetite for life and young men, is the film's narrator. She is the daughter of the writer Joe (Allen), who now lives mostly in Paris and is divorced from her mother, the immensely rich altruist Steffi. Steffi is married to Bob, with whom she has four children: the marriageable Skylar, the politically cantankerous Scott, and the teenage girls Lane and Laura, who of course fall in love with the same boy.

Among the people the family members become romantically involved with is the beautiful but confusing art historian Von, whose love Joe wins thanks to his cunning daughter. Skylar is to become engaged to the nice Holden, but then her well-meaning mother drags a young offender, Charles, home for Thanksgiving, and for a while Skylar has other things on her mind.

The plot is slight, as it so often is in a musical, and that is precisely what the film is. At regular intervals the main characters burst into song with rather varied results. Woody Allen has not chosen his actors for their singing talents, and they all do their best. Julia Roberts and Drew Barrymore have thin, whispery voices, while Goldie Hawn, on the other hand, impresses. The songs are evergreens and show tunes. The only one I knew was 'Making Whoopee', which is danced and sung in a hospital corridor!

Everyone Says I Love You is like a spring day, light and crisp, and then you quickly get hungry again.