Quicknation    Melinda and Melinda

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Melinda and Melinda is a 2004 film written and directed by Woody Allen. The film is set in Allen's favorite location, Manhattan, and stars Radha Mitchell as the protagonist Melinda, in two story lines, one comic, one tragic. The film received a "rotten" [1] rating from film-review website Rotten Tomatoes and was a flop in theaters; ticket sales were well below four million dollars [2]. However, reviews on the film's release were not all poor, with some critics, particularly in the British press, hailing a return to form from Allen.

The premise of the film is that a group of four writers are conversing over dinner. The question arises: Is life naturally comic or tragic? One of the four proposes a simple story (a distraught woman knocks on a door and disrupts a dinner party) and the two prominent playwrights in the group begin telling their versions of this story, one being comic and one tragic.

Although Radha Mitchell plays Melinda in both versions, no one else is in both. Chloë Sevigny, Jonny Lee Miller, and Chiwetel Ejiofor star with her in the tragedy, while Will Ferrell and Amanda Peet star with her in the comedy.

The film also stars Wallace Shawn as the comic playwright and Larry Pine as the dramatist. Steve Carell has a small part as Ferrell's friend in the comedy.