He lets her stay, she adores him for his abrasive erudition, she falls in love with him and they get married. This is all very Woody of course: from Manhattan to Husbands and Wives, the director who made a career out of mocking his neurotic shortcomings somehow always ended up as a heroic lust-object for very young women — women who, in real life of course, wouldn't have let him near them. 

Boris and Melody's Pygmalion set-up is disrupted by the arrival of Marietta and John, Melody's dysfunctional, right-wing, God-fearing parents — red rags to Boris's bull. The Big Apple works its Democrat-tinged brand of magic and these uptight red-necks are duly liberated — Marietta is transformed into a Greenwich Village bohemian, John discovers long-buried desires. It all ends rather sweetly and neatly. There is somebody for everybody, it seems to be saying, even if time, chance and pure coincidence have to play a far bigger part than we would like them to. Along the way it certainly offers a few small pleasures: as Marietta, Patricia Clarkson steals each of her scenes with expert comic timing, there is a great retro soundtrack, including Groucho Marx's famous rendition of Hello, I Must be Going, and in Henry Cavill, who plays Melody's young suitor Randy, we have what must be the best-looking young actor in films today. There are also a couple of good one-liners, for old time's sake. 

Why then did such a small, seemingly inoffensive movie leave a rather nasty taste in the mouth? I pondered this as I left the screening. First, I thought it was the condescending treatment of the parents as objects of humour that had irritated me. But no: to be fair, they were given some of the funnier lines and as characters were actually portrayed as warmer and wittier than those around them. Then I thought, well, perhaps it was the fact that Boris was allowed to remain as ghastly as when we first met him; no transformational story arc for him. But then, I had to admit to myself that it couldn't have worked any other way: a nicer Boris would have looked like a terrible cop-out. Finally, it dawned on me. It was simply that I felt completely let down. Grab love with both hands when it presents itself: had we gone through all those years, all those films, all that angst, for this?