Why Does Woody Allen Keep Coming to Mind as I familiarize Myself with

Yes Noah was very influenced by woody Allen in college. The similarities are that they both make smaller scale writer/director films around 90 mins in length so you're right to be reminded of woody cause I am too.

Kill yourself.

I don't know what you are drinking.....but one of these names is trying to emulate the other. I will let you guess which is The Master. lol.

Well, this film did have a *super* Woody Allen vibe.

I'd say that the way the dialogue is shaped is a HUGE contributor to this. I'm thinking about the conversation at the party with Adam Driver, the other guy, Driver's girlfriend, and Frances. The way the conversations overlap, interweave, could easily sound like a real-life conversation -and yet!- still has implications for the characters and story... That kind of thing. The dinner party later in is big there, too.

Other elements that impart a similarity: largely New York setting, romance, the element of the elevated mundane, humour mixed with pathos, artists' struggles, and a kind of "first world problems" thing. Oh, and the philosophical stuff (intellectualism, culture, Proust, Paris, etc.)

Acting styles are similar: subdued, but not catatonic. They feel real. The dialogue could be tightly scripted or partly improvised (maybe there's some Altman here, too...)

Finally, the black-and-white look kicks me to Manhattan a bit...

And yet, the film isn't a carbon copy. It's concerned with very "Millennial" problems regarding rent, payments, dreams-vs-practicalities, finding that balance, and remaining adolescent even while in the late 20s. Those aren't Allen-esque things at all. It also uses music differently than Allen. Allen uses soundtrack as mood and transition. Here, the music is almost punctuation or interlude (the music "sequences" here - like Frances dancing down the street to David Bowie, as opposed to Allen's use, which doesn't usually involve sequences like that).

The camerawork is different, too. Consider the aforementioned party scene. This film uses two two-shots, cutting quickly back-and-forth to match the dialogue's snappiness. Allen probably would have moved the camera smoothly from angle to angle to get the whole thing in much longer takes. Although, that said, there is that '70s-style "fly-on-the-wall" thing that Allen really loves...