Anything Else is Woody Allen’s best film since Bullets Over Broadway (1994) and marks a welcome return to form after a string of disappointments. One of the reasons this movie works is the casting of American Pie’s Jason Biggs as the romantic lead. It’s not that Biggs gives a great performance -- he doesn’t -- but at least we’re spared the love scenes between Allen and some gorgeous actress who were becoming increasingly ludicrous, not to say creepy, in some of his recent films.

Biggs plays Jerry, a thoughtful Jewish comedy writer having trouble with his sex kitten girlfriend, Amanda. That Amanda is played by Christina Ricci is her one, compelling asset, as in all other respects she is a self-centred, hysterical nightmare.

If comedy comes from pain, then Jerry’s plight is funny. Amanda stands him up, spends his money, and torments him by withholding sex for months on end, all the while wandering around in her underwear looking, well, like Christina Ricci. He asks if she still loves him and she snaps back, “God! Just because I pull away when you touch me?”

Jerry has other problems too. He’s stuck with Danny DeVito as an agent, who charges 25% despite never finding him any decent work. Amanda’s mother (Stockard Channing) moves in, and her cabaret rehearsals disrupt his writing. His only solace is a fellow writer, played by Allen himself, whose advice is to dump everyone and buy a gun.

Anything Else is a breezy comedy full of funny scenes and classic Allen one-liners. The cast members are predictably excellent -- with Channing and Ricci making of the most of tyrannical roles that look like an actress’s dream. The film seems unusually conventional for Allen, with a sunny jazz score, and beautifully shot by long-time collaborator Santo Loquasto.

What’s interesting is the subtle shift that seems to have taken place with Allen moving from the central role. Jerry seems to be a Woody Allen surrogate in many respects, but there’s a crucial difference. Allen usually plays a neurotic, passive-aggressive wimp, who somehow always gets his way. Jerry, on the other hand, is browbeaten and easily manipulated -- and yet, surprisingly perhaps, all the more appealing for it.

(Released by DreamWorks and and rated "R" for scenes of  drug use and some sexual references.)