A Rainy Day in New York: Woody Allen movie or bot-composed simulation? [Video]

Without the backstory—and we will get to that backstory—A Rainy Day in New York might have been yet another late-era Woody Allen movie, indistinguishable from the rest. The sort where it seems like someone (Woody Allen, presumably, because who else) asked an AI chatbot to make a Woody Allen movie, but with modern-day young and youngish actors. The bot worked overtime and came up with three different pseudo-Allens, played by Timothée Chalamet (of Canadian and Jewish background, I had no idea), Liev Schreiber, and (why stop flattering yourself?) Jude Law. How can Jude Law be turned into Woody Allen? The magic of cinema.

Wait I forgot a fourth: an NYU student filmmaker, a blink-and-you-miss-it character who’s halfway between Allen and George Costanza.

There are women as well, and you will never guess what qualities they share, but in case you were stumped: youth, hotness, and attraction to a Woody Allen type.

There’s a scene where Elle Fanning, a modern-day Annie Hall, an aw-shucks naïf from the boonies, …