Woody Allen's controversial film coming to Korea

Elle Fanning, left, and Timothee Chalamet in a scene from “A Rainy Day in New York” / Courtesy of Green Narae Media

By Kwak Yeon-soo

Woody Allen's new film “A Rainy Day in New York,” showing a young couple's romantic getaway in New York turning into a nightmare, is set to hit Korean theaters May 6 despite the controversy over the sexual abuse allegation made against the director.

In the light of the controversies surrounding Allen, who allegedly molested his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow when she was seven years old in the early 1990s, the film was unable to be released in the U.S.

His history came under renewed scrutiny as the #MeToo movement against sexual abuse grew in the wake of allegations against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein in 2017.

The film's local distributor Green Narae Media faced criticism for going forward with its release plan in Korea. To downplay criticism, it wrote the "Midnight in Paris production team,” instead of the director's name on the film's official poster.

In “A Rainy Day in New York,” Oscar-nominee Timothee Chalamet plays Gatsby Welles, a young, wealthy New Yorker attending Yardley, a fictional liberal arts college.

Gatsby plans a weekend trip to New York with his girlfriend Ashleigh (Elle Fanning), a journalism major who's landed an interview with renowned film director Roland Pollard (Liev Schreiber) in the city.

However, their entire plan goes up in smoke, with Ashleigh tied up with her big scoop and Gatsby wandering the streets while trying to avoid family members who are in town for his mother's annual gala dinner. The couple barely spend any time together over the course of one long and rainy day.

The film portrays the world of New York's upper class, delivering witty jokes about pretentious pseudo-intellectuals such as Gatsby's mother.

A poster for film “A Rainy Day in New York” / Courtesy of Green Narae Media

Like Allen's previous films in which characters fall in love, break up, have affairs and feel nostalgic about past relationships, “A Rainy Day in New York” explores complicated romantic relationships.

In the film Ashleigh gets hit on by much older men, including the director, screenwriter (Jude Law) and actor (Diego Luna), which seems inappropriate from the current cultural context.

Fanning does her best playing a naive character who is easily swayed by the older men's manipulations.

Chalamet plays the brilliant, but neurotic New Yorker who wanders around the town aimlessly, falling into a melancholy mood. However, Gatsby suddenly falling for Chan (Selena Gomez), with whom he spent only a few hours, leaves the audience with questions.

Earlier, the 25-year-old actor publicly stated he regretted working with Allen, saying he will donate his entire salary from the film to charity.

Many Korean moviegoers expressed discomfort about the movie's release, while some defended the move, arguing that the film should be judged separately from the filmmaker.