While dining out with friends, Sy suggests the difficulty of separating comedy from tragedy. To illustrate his point, he tells his guests two parallel stories about Melinda ; both versions have the same basic elements, but one take on her state of affairs leans toward levity, while the other is full of anguish. Each story involves Melinda coping with a recent divorce through substance abuse while beginning a romantic relationship with a close friend's husband.
Melinda and Melinda is a 2004 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Woody Allen. The film is set in Manhattan and stars Radha Mitchell as the protagonist Melinda, in two storylines; one tragic and the other comic. It premiered at the 2004 San Sebastián International Film Festival and was given a limited theatrical release in the United States on March 18, 2005, by Fox Searchlight Pictures.
