Alcoholic self-destructive, apathetic: Abe Lucas, a controversial philosophy professor, is emotionally depressed. Transferred to Braylin University in New England, where he is awaited with impatience, he meets two women: Jill, a brilliant student charmed by his intelligence, and Rita, a married colleague who desperately tries to hit on him. His relationship with them presents Abe with the occasion to find his way back to life, in a very surprising and dangerous way…

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Every time Woody Allenmakes a movie the same question arises: is it great or dumb? Irrational Man tends towards the latter. Less bland than Magic in the Moonlight, also starring Emma Stone, this disenchanted, existential bit borrows from Crimes and Misdemeanors, Match Point and Cassandra’s Dream, his most cruel and murderous films. But because the Woody Allen formula has its limits, this movie is neither funny, original nor refined. Somewhere between vaudeville and tragedy, it stumbles along from one scene to the next with low-level energy, to the point where you begin to ask yourself why Allen even made it in the first place. The answer is probably because he makes one every year, but the talents of Joaquin Phoenix would have deserved a little more effort on the otherwise legendary director’s part.