Woody Allen has shown his latest film, “Irrational Man,” in a premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, unveiling a Rhode Island drama about a despairing academic driven to murder.
The film stars Joaquin Phoenix as a flask-swilling philosophy professor who has come to dismiss his subject as “verbal masturbation.” As he befriends a young student played by Emma Stone, he contemplates a Dostoyevsky-inspired plot.
It’s Allen’s 11th film at Cannes but the 79-year-old writer-director’s films have always played out of competition, as he has long disdained prize-driven judgement in art.
Allen told reporters he and his protagonist have similar feelings about philosophy, saying “life has its own agenda and it runs right over you while you’re prattling.”
“Irrational Man” opens in U.S. theaters July 24.
