Treat Williams, Tea Leoni, Woody Allen and Debra Messing star in Hollywood Ending

This time around Woody plays Val Waxman, a once great director with more emotional baggage than American Tourister. Done in by his own hypochondria, imagined attacks of everything from the black plague to elm disease, Val has gone from being the award-winning toast of the town to professional exile. Just when all appears lost, his last chance at artistic and financial redemption comes from the most unlikely place. His ex-wife Ellie (a very tempting Tea Leoni) convinces her new fiancée Hal (Treat Williams) – a cheesy studio executive whose "haircuts alone could feed a family of five" – that Val is the perfect director to helm Galaxie Pictures' new blockbuster, The City That Never Sleeps. Val is reluctant to work for his "worst enemy," but is spurred on by his agent Al (Mark Rydell) and air-headed actress girlfriend Lori (Debra "Will and Grace" Messing). Ultimately, Val sees things their way, not knowing that soon he wouldn't be seeing much of anything.

It isn't long before Val's neurosis rears its over-medicated head. Shortly after filming begins, he starts waging artistic war with Galaxie studio's management. Most notably Ed (perma-tan George Hamilton), a banal bean counter who misses his support group for studio execs. But Val's battles aren't limited to the boardroom. His relationship with Ellie veers crazily between strictly business and intense jealousy over her relationship with Hal. Val becomes increasingly short sighted until he wakes one evening from a nap to find that he's gone completely lights-out, blanket-over-the-bird-cage blind.

With the already bone-skinny Lori off at a spa to cut her body fat down to .2 percent, Val has no one to call but Al, who takes him around to doctors. After extensive testing, they can find no medical reason for his loss of sight. Despite the disaster, Val is once again convinced by Al's "agent's ethics" that the only thing to do is to find a way to finish directing The City That Never Sleeps – without letting on that he can't see the forest, or the trees.

What follows until almost the very end is a slapstick string of sight gags and pratfalls that would be embarrassing and painful to watch if Woody wasn't so surprisingly good at physical comedy. For a little old guy with glasses he can really hit the deck. Without giving too much away (as if this were The Crying Game, Sixth Sense or that Nicole Kidman movie about the kids in the house that no one saw), Val somehow finishes the movie, makes peace with his estranged son, regains his sight, wins Ellie back, and they fly off to Paris. Well, what did you think was gonna happen, everybody dies?

Most aestheticians, cinema types and other pompous blowholes will probably have a field day trampling Hollywood Ending for all the things it's not. Droll, majestic, subtle, or otherwise sensitive in any way. Granted, at 1 hour and 54 minutes, it is about a half an hour too long. But, in that time, Allen does a fair amount of what he does best: make fun of the shallowness and superficiality of L.A. and make love to N.Y. with sweeping cityscapes and a lushly orchestrated soundtrack. Plus, he gets to poke fun at his own paranoid self, and hopefully not break any ribs along the way. All of which should add up to big enough box-office proceeds from Allen's remaining fans (Dick Cavett alone will probably see it at least three times) so that Woody can do it all again in a year or so. And for some directors, that's the best Hollywood Ending of 'em all.