Woody Allen, Song-and-dance Man

As light and sweet as a patisserie meringue, Woody Allen's Everyone Says I Love You is - in case you've been om-ing in the high Himalayas these last few months and haven't heard - a musical. Yves St. Laurent mannequins and turban-topped cabbies break into song, nannies and panhandlers dance down the avenue, and a cast that includes Alan Alda, Lukas Haas, Goldie Hawn, Gaby Hoffmann, Edward Norton, Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts, Tim Roth and Allen himself trill and coo to vintage ditties by the likes of Cole Porter and Rodgers and Hart.

Although not one among its stars is anything approaching a Broadway belter, only Drew Barrymore lip-syncs to somebody else's vocalizations - apparently the actress can't carry a melody to save her life.

In most other ways, the writer-director's 26th film traverses familiar territory: Allen is Joe, an author in the throes of romantic angst, smitten by a young and beautiful art historian (Roberts). There's a circle of well-heeled family and friends: Joe's ex-wife Steffi (Hawn), their teenage daughter DJ (Natasha Lyonne, who supplies the film's narration), Steffi's new husband - and Joe's old friend - Bob (Alda), and sundry half-siblings, stepkids, friends and lovers. This is the sort of group that resides in palatial Park Avenue digs, drops big bucks at Harry Winston and Le Cirque, and spends their Christmas en famille at the Ritz in Paris.

Which, come to think of it, is another way Everyone Says I Love You isn't quite the typical Allen fare. There's a wonderful jolt, and joke, of a moment when the camera pans to Allen, shoulders hunched in the chill air, taking the pavement in that familiarly worried gait. But this emblematic New Yorker isn't walking through Central Park or the Upper East Side; instead, he is crossing a bridge over the Seine with a baguette tucked under his arm. It's a sublime little sight gag for Woodyphiles to savor.