IN his latest staging of the battle of the sexes, Woody Allen returns to the streets of post-9/11 New York where aspiring comedy writer Jerry Falk (Jason Biggs) struggles to keep a relationship afloat with his actress girlfriend Amanda (Christina Ricci).

A master of the written word, Jerry finds it impossible to communicate with his sweetheart.

"Do you love me?" he asks in exasperation. "What a question!" she replies, evidently shocked by his sudden outburst, "Just because I pull away when you touch me?"

The situation gradually worsens, affecting Jerry's writing, so he seeks advice from his mentor, sixty-something school teacher David Dobel (Woody Allen), whose personal insight - "She's cheating on you" - makes a bad situation only worse.

Allen, who seems to have seen sense and stepped back, aged 68, from playing the romantic leads - retains an enviable way with words, especially in the scenes between the two lovers.

"I've had a crush on you since we met. Couldn't you tell, the way I was ignoring you?" asks Amanda one day.

"There was something compelling about your apathy," Jerry replies drolly.

Neither Jerry nor Amanda are particularly sympathetic or likeable and they are completely overwhelmed by colourful supporting turns from Stockard Channing as Amanda's deranged actress mom and Danny DeVito's live-wire agent who is a heart attack just waiting to happen.

The diminutive, bespectacled writer-director takes his traditional role as the neurotic pessimist, never short of a scathing one-liner about the opposite sex ("The Pentagon should use her hormones for chemical warfare!")

In Anything Else, love hurts. If only the characters would stop obsessively pondering their navels, they might realise it sooner.

See it at UCI (Sun, Tues only)