Irrational Man

Irrational Man (2015) is about a philosophy professor arriving at a small college. Abe Lucas has convinced himself that life is meaningless, drinks, and feels nothing. Then a conversation he overhears in a diner changes everything: a bad judge is ruining a woman's life. Abe decides to kill him and feels alive for the first time. The idea is a philosophical trap. He justifies the murder in the abstract: he does not know anyone involved and has no personal stake, so the act is pure. The film shows that logic collapsing; once his own life improves, so do his principles. Woody Allen wrote and directed. Joaquin Phoenix plays Abe, Emma Stone a student and Parker Posey a colleague. It is Allen's third return to the subject he handled in Crimes and Misdemeanors and Match Point: a murder that goes unpunished and what a person does in the absence of morality. The Ramsey Lewis Trio's The In Crowd recurs throughout and works as a meter for Abe's state of mind. It screened out of competition at Cannes in 2015. It runs 95 minutes. Good for: films that argue about moral dilemmas, Joaquin Phoenix, and Allen's crime strand. Less good for: the voiceover is heavy and spells out what the characters think; things that should be shown are stated. The relationship between professor and student goes unexamined. The ending resolves into too tidy an irony.