i can hear the question already . 
what on earth do these two movies have in common ? 
to most people , not a lot , except that both are by renowned directors . 
as i saw them , however , both movies have flawed romantic scripts wrapped in distinctive packaging of lavish visuals musical numbers . 
but oh , how differently the packages affect their films . 
while " everyone's " production numbers make an otherwise ordinary woody tale something special , jane campion's imaginative visuals only serve to emphasize how pompous and uninvolving laura jones' script is . 
i left " everyone says i love you " not remembering a lot about who loved whom , but its infectious happiness put a grin on my face . 
i left " the portrait of a lady " not remembering a lot about who loved whom , and i could have cared less . 
 " everyone " features nothing allen hasn't done before storywise . 
woody is again desperately in love with a beautiful woman ( roberts ) , and against the odds they manage to click for awhile before allen is left wondering what went wrong--again . 
similar situations happen to his family and friends . 
some of the more outlandish comedy scenes even hark back to his " early , funny " films . 
the scenes between tim roth and drew barrymore could have come out of " take the money and run , " his directorial debut . 
however , nothing allen has ever done prepared me for this one-of-a-kind display of sheer good spirits . 
in fact , in this movie , the feeling itself is what's most important . 
yes , the movie would have been better--among his very best , i think--if it had a meatier story . 
but what it lacks in substance it makes up for in feeling . 
and what better way to express feeling than through music ? 
love is often best expressed in a song , and the numbers the cast break into here cut straight to the heart . 
some are a tad too goofy , such as the number where a lot of ghosts prance around in a funeral parlor , but i admired allen for even putting them in there . 
it also helps that as usual , allen has a top-flight cast working with him . 
their singing voices range from quite good ( goldie hawn ) to not quite good ( allen ) to literally unlistenable ( barrymore , whose real voice was dubbed by a professional ) . 
but while their vocal abilities differ , all the actors do a great job of putting joy up there on the screen , and making it rub off on the audience . 
granted , some people will simply never accept characters singing in movies , but for those attuned to it , this film should work wonders . 
jane campion , too , has a top-flight cast working for her in " portrait of a lady , " too , but even their considerable skills can do nothing to keep the film from being a stilted , virtually lifeless mess , albeit a visually interesting one . 
campion and her cinematographer stuart dryburgh come up with a great variety of eye-filling images that linger in the mind . 
unfortunately , what didn't linger in the mind for me was the story the visuals were supposed to be reflecting . 
i remember very well shots of a train with its light beaming and shots of men vanishing around nicole kidman , but i can remember very little of what happened between all these people . 
even worse , i don't find myself feeling bad that i've forgotten . 
the problem , i think , lies not with the cast , which seemed to be trying very hard for the material . 
it was the script that couldn't convince me to care about anyone . 
the characters were putting out all kinds of emotion , but i found no reason to connect with any of them . 
i understood that the story was about cold , emotionally vacant characters , but for me to care about them , i have to identify with them somehow and want them to inject feeling into their lives . 
jones' script never simply gave me that opportunity . 
in the end , it almost seemed as if campion was trying to inject some life of her own into the proceedings with her visual flourishes . 
unfortunately , as she kept painting these dazzling pictures , they only served to push me further away from the material and remind me that there was no connection between me and the film . 
in the end , the movie's one strength ended up hurting it . 
so here we have two films with pretty uninteresting plots , and yet i was able to truly enjoy one of them . 
why ? 
with both films , my head cared about neither story , but only " everyone says i love you " was able to make my heart sing . 
