REVIEW: You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger

DULLSVILLE

Woody Allen has clearly run out of ideas (finally) if his last two films are anything to go by. Unlike the sharp cynicism of Match Point (2005) and the flaky romanticism of Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), both Whatever Works (2009) and his latest, You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger are mere parodies of Allen's worldview. Neurotic affluent folk, preoccupation with mortality, lies and deception and a perennial state of anxiety. Everyone in Allen's universe wants to be somewhere else and are somehow convinced happiness is just around the next corner.

Alfie (Anthony Hopkins, often grimacing self-consciously) has a late-life crisis and dumps his wife of several decades Helena (Gemma Jones, in the film's standout act) for a young call girl Charmaine (Lucy Punch), who may be otherwise dumb, but knows just how to hitch the right guy. Helena, for her part, becomes a nervous wreck and clings to the vague but soothing propehsies of a fortune-teller. Apart from which, she drinks a bit too much, and is in the habit of showing up unannounced at her daughter Sally's (Naomi Watts) flat.

Sally in turn is in an unhappy marriage with failed writer Roy (Josh Brolin having a bad hair day) who's unsuccessfully trying to sell his second book when he's not staring out of the window at young Dia (Freida Pinto) living opposite his house and in the habit of sitting around strumming her guitar in a striking red slip. Sally meanwhile, has designs on her boss (Antonio Banderas) who's conveniently unhappily married and perhaps leading her on. Or not.

And so they all go round in circles. 

Each blunders on doggedly towards their own destiny. Barring the odd vintage Woody witticism, there's nothing but pretentious spiritual mumbo-jumbo, unconvincing twists of plot and such insipid characterisation, you really don't care what happens to any one of them. Nor does the narrator, who drones on but never manages the ironic cynicism he's aiming for.

All you have to do then is wait for Helena (the least blemished of the ensemble) to sit with the man of her dreams on a park bench discussing her possible past lives -- an eclectic range going from Cleopatra to Joan of Arc.

One doesn't know about the characters, but Allen certainly seems to be in the throes of a cinematic meltdown.

Comments

[Deepa Deosthalee]

VP, I loved 'Match Point', though since I haven't lived in London I couldn't tell the difference between NY and London sensibilities. I think he did a fabulous job of exposing human duplicity and viciousness in a delightful narrative.

[deepagahlot]

London

[Vikram Phukan]

I actually felt that the rot started with Matchpoint. Londoners are just not as neurotic as New Yorkers, and he never stopped foisting his New York sensibilities upon us irrespective of where he landed up in the world. Mighty Aphrodite and Bullets Over Broadway were his last good ones. Hannah & Her Sisters was his best!

In which city is this one based?