Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
The word “problematic” gets thrown around a lot these days; probably too much. But even so, Louis C.K. may have managed to put together the single most problematic movie of this very fraught time in Hollywood history. Which is to say, there’s nothing actively bad about what’s on display in the trailer for I Love You, Daddy, and yet everything seems custom-designed to make everybody who watches it pull uncomfortably at their collars.
I Love You, Daddy, C.K.’s first feature film as a director since Pootie Tang, could not be more of a self-conscious Woody Allen homage if decided to skip the Academy Awards in order to perform with its jazz ensemble. To the point where even the credits at the end of the trailer are presented in classic single-card Woody Allen fashion.
Specifically, it’s tailored to resemble Allen’s Manhattan, the 1979 film that many consider to be Allen’s finest work. The I Love You, Daddy trailer presents a black-and-white film about a nebbishy Hollywood screenwriter (played by C.K.) beset on all sides by problematic women: a naggy ex-wife (Helen Hunt), stern-faced co-workers (Edie Falco; Pamela Adlon), an actress who’s too beautiful for him yet is interested in him anyway (Rose Byrne), and a jailbait daughter (Chloe Grace Moretz). The problem comes when his daughter ends up catching the eye of a legendary Hollywood director (John Malkovich) who notoriously has an eye for very young/underaged girls.
So! To sum up! During Week Two of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, we get a trailer where Louis C.K., a man currently beset by all sorts of whispered rumors about inappropriate sexual conduct and harassment, has directed and stars in a movie that pays loving homage to Woody Allen — who is Woody Allen — and in particular pays homage to Manhattan, a movie where Allen’s adult character dates a 17-year-old, and in this new movie, a legendary film director is a notorious predator of underage girls, and this movie is called I Love You, Daddy. Just … do we not all deserve a break? From this? From all of this?
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post mistakenly failed to acknowledge that Louis C.K. previously directed Pootie Tang. We regret the error.
