What a relief it is to walk out of a new Woody Allen film with something to talk about besides how young his co-stars are. Not to say that Allen's latest comedy skimps on sexy starlets half his age who are cast as romantic interests; there's Téa Leoni (as his ex-wife), Debra Messing (as his current girlfriend), and Tiffani Thiessen (as the requisite voluptuous hottie who really wants to get it on with him).

There's no getting around the fact that seeing drastically younger women kissing Woody Allen, or even just consorting with him, is the primary visual element of many of his recent films, and that for some people, many people, it's simply a deal-breaker--even though the romantic matchups are usually played for absurdity. But Hollywood Ending has so much going for it in the way of pure laughs that it'd be a shame if the stock reading of Allen as Dirty Old Man prevented people from seeing it. It's simply the funniest movie he's made in years.

In fact, Allen never stopped being funny; as his recent work will attest, he's at his best with light, screwball-ish comedy, which is what Hollywood Ending ultimately is, though it comes dolled up as a satire of filmmaking. "Satire" is the wrong word, however, because the industry parody is shrewd enough not to pretend to be real; this is a total farce.

Allen plays Val Waxman, a notoriously "difficult" filmmaker whose popularity has dwindled to the point where he's forced to make deodorant commercials in Canada. Meanwhile, his ex-wife (Leoni, who should exclusively work as a screwball leading lady; she is unstoppably good in this film), working in development at a big Hollywood studio, has found a film she knows would be perfect for Val to direct. She convinces her new studio boss and fiancée (Treat Williams) to take a chance and hire Waxman, despite the studio's reservations, thus establishing a classic Allen conflict that plays to all the filmmaker's strengths. And given the cast, a few of his weaknesses, too.