I’ve just realised the point of the theme song from Alfie*. It is not just a question: “What’s it all about Alfie?” Rather it is a question which contains its own answer: “What’s it all about? (Its all about) Alfie.” And all versions, including the seventies US remake/sequel with Alan Price Alfie Darling, is all they are about. Trying to use this slick modern version as a way of judging the mindset of the modern man, or even the modern cad about Manhattan, would be fruitless. Alfie is a barely realistic character. Instead watching the new version is like seeing a film about a domino rally, and at the end marvelling that they all fall down. Law is okay in the role, but he might as well be playing a space alien. Indeed making him an English alien isolates him even more than his womanising. At least the Michael Caine version suggested that Alfie was of a type, that there were lads like him playing the field all over London. Being this solo Brit shag magnet almost gives Alfie his own super-power. And hence makes him as realistic as Spider-Man, just with a moped instead of webs.
*The original Cilla Black version, it does not really make an appearance in the Jude Law remake, judged inferior to some sub-Van Morrison white boy blues by Dave Stewart and Mike Jagger!