You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger

*****SPOILERS***** People who go to Woody Allen's films should know by now that Allen is an agnostic when it comes to God, and a skeptic when it comes to anything "supernatural", especially "New Agey" beliefs. That doesn't stop him from using God, religion, and New Age beliefs in his films. In "Alice", one of Allen's best films, he uses a lot of "New Agey" beliefs and supernatural events. Those people posting here who think that Allen is "endorsing" fortune-telling, psychics, and reincarnation are WAY off track. Allen is using those things to compare and contrast the "ordinary" beliefs and actions of "ordinary" people. The husband, daughter, and son-in-law think that the wife/mother/mother-in-law is "delusional" because she believes in fortune-telling and reincarnation. BUT, does she REALLY believe in those things? Or, does she pretend to because it helps her to "get what she wants" and the "blame" goes to the fortune-teller friends and/or her own "nuttiness"? She doesn't want to lend her ungrateful daughter even MORE money------blame the fortune-teller. She wants to criticize her son-in-law for wasting his life trying to become a famous writer instead of becoming a doctor------that's what the fortune-teller said. She knows these kinds of things still "sting" her ungrateful family members, but it's not because SHE is being critical or mean------the fortune-teller is saying these things! She would rather be thought of as "nutty" than "judgmental and selfish". And, she knows her husband is the "nutty" and delusional one-----he thinks he can stop the aging process and death by working out at the gym and marrying a woman young enough to be his grand-daughter. The daughter is delusional because she thinks her boss has romantic feelings for her when he has never said or done anything to give that impression. The son-in-law is delusional because he thinks he is a great writer and thinks he can actually get away with passing someone else's writing off as his own. All these "delusions" are "ordinary" ones that humans have All The Time, so we don't recognize them as "delusions". We save that judgment for the "real nutty" things like psychics and reincarnation. Allen says, why are some delusions "nutty" but others aren't? Well, I guess our OWN delusions are NOT nutty, but other people's delusions ARE nutty. Does that make us delusional? Nutty? Or Human?

The passions, ambitions, and obsessions of two couples-Alfie (Anthony Hopkins) and Helena (Gemma Jones) , and their daughter Sally (Naomi Watts) and her husband Roy (Josh Brolin)-bring nothing but trouble and madness. Thus, when Alfie abandons Helene in search of his lost youth, she abandons sanity and succumbs to the bizarre advice of a deceitful fortune teller (Pauline Collins). Alfie undergoes a mid-life crisis and impulsively weds an escort named Charmaine (Lucy Punch) . Meantime, Sally, unhappy in her marriage, begins to fall in love with Greg (Antonio Banderas), the attractive gallery owner with whom she works. While, failed writer Roy falls head over heels for his neighbor Dia (Freida Pinto), a mysterious young woman who sparks his attraction from the window across the hall from his apartment.

This is a choral film dealing with a group of bourgeois characters living in London, including their crushes, ambitions, and anxieties that lead them into trouble and out of their minds. Woody Allen directs and writes this ensemble comedy and loving drama with a superb cast of a large international cast that moves like a fish in water through the London streets where the action takes place. This is a light-hearted, saucy and fun romp around conflicting ideas of what a good relationship must be and most of the humour is situational. After his successful Manhattan comedies, Woody Allen moved London where he made more serious (Match point, Scoop, Cassandra dream) than previous ones and later on, France (Midnight in Paris, Magic in the Moonlight), Barcelona (Vicky Cristina Barcelona) and Rome (To Rome with love) where he went on making amusing comedies.

The motion picture was well directed by Woody Allen, although it is excessively talky, and not showing too much of Allen's peculiar personal world. In the beginning Woody made usually hilarious films with hardly any personal comments about his own life in which he used to act, such as : ¨What's Up, Tiger Lily?¨, ¨Take the money and run¨, ¨Pussycat, Pussycat I Love You¨, ¨Sleeper¨, ¨Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex but Were Afraid to Ask¨, among others . Subsequently he made several masterpieces. Including a series of movies in which he provided nice direction, investing care enough, wit and warmth, such as : ¨Crimes and misdemeanors¨, ¨New York stories¨, ¨September¨, ¨Radio Days¨, ¨Hanna and her sisters¨, ¨Broadway Danny Rose¨, ¨Zelig¨, ¨Stardust memories¨, ¨A midsummer Night's Sex Comedy¨, ¨Interiors¨, ¨Purple rose of Cairo¨, ¨Manhattan¨,¨Melinda Melinda¨and many others . His best movie is ¨Annie Hall¨, Allen's most awarded, the Oscars voters were impressed and awarded various statuettes, winner among many other awards, of the Oscar for Best film, Direction, Script and Lead Actress. Rating 'You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger' (2010): 6/10 . Better than average. The movie will appeal to Woody Allen entusiasts and fans of the leading quartet: Naomi Watts, Anthony Hopkins, Josh Brolin and Antonio Banderas.

Anthony Hopkins is always a joy to behold on screen. If you're further into things British and your "Masterpiece Theater" memory is long, you will recognize wife #1 as the incredible "Duchess Of Duke Street" Gemma Jones, making a rare appearance on America's big screen. Like Allen's more recent films, save for the British accents, you could be in any city of urban sophisticates and wannabes. The London settings ultimately don't give the film a deep sense of any place in particular. But as Anglophiles have not been well-served of late Stateside, this release will have to do until some grand historic costume epic sweeps us back into a dark theater. All new Woody Allen comedies are also for those who don't dwell on the director's personal life and still enjoy him as a film-maker of thoughtful,lighter fare. Sure, his earliest films were more ground-breaking and side-splitting, but we've accepted that for eons now. Not an obvious Oscar contender as a whole, many of its performances are indeed worthy of consideration. Sony Pictures Classics' marketing is a good fit for American audiences who see the imprint of a studio's "for select audiences" arm as a modern-day film lovers' "Good Housekeeping" seal of approval -- proclaiming here is a work of cinema, several cuts above the mindless teen romp, action-adventure or horror rampage. Film comedy choices for 40-somethings on up have been bleak of late. As the Oscar race moves into its final quarter lap, a visit with this "Stranger" will brighten things up a bit. My 6 rating is relative to the quality of 2010's domestic crop. It could just as well have been a 5 if there had been more comedies worth $14 since January. But especially for Allen devotees, all is relative, in that sense at least.

"Well, as Sally told Roy, sometimes the illusions work better than the medicine."

As far as Woody Allen films go, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger isn't out of the ordinary. The story is the usual mixture of completely unpredictable good and bad events, that seem to happen to his characters regardless of whether they deserve them or not. Much like life. Unintended consequences, fate, and the meaninglessness of it all is once again the underlying message, all presented through the lives of the wealthy and discontent. There's less humor than some of his movies, a little more than others, and I think that most fans of Allen's work will find it agreeable, if much less neurotic than something like Annie Hall. 

What does set this apart from some of the director's other work is the cast. Sure, Allen has a history of working with some excellent actors. This is the best cast he's had, in my opinion, primarily because I'm such a fan of Naomi Watts. To see her joined by Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins, Frieda Pinto, Lucy Punch, Antonio Banderas, Gemma Jones, and others...well, that's quite an ensemble. 

Overall, I was satisfied with You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger. Allen doesn't stretch himself much with this one, but the cast makes it memorable.

In "You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger" we are swiftly introduced to the complicated plot with who is married to whom, who is cheating with whom, and who is in love with whom. I found that the slowest part. I wasn't able to find much of Allen's underlying comedy in all of the criss-crossing relationships.

The comedy comes with the arrival of Charmaine (Lucy Punch) - the "actress" that Anthony Hopkins is marrying. I found it interesting that at the sight of this most ludicrous relationship, the other characters, all at various stages of mid-life crises, then pushed forward to get their lives and relationships sorted out. Allen didn't spend much time analyzing the various loves and consequences, more just saying here they are, you can laugh at them if you wish. I laughed a little bit.

I found that Anthony Hopkins and Lucy Punch stood out of this all-star cast. Hopkins' character, nearing 70, married the much younger Punch and joined a gym after suffering his mid-life crisis. Antonio Banderas played a gallery owner and I was quite impressed with his subtle comedy and muted sexual presence. Josh Brolin played the neurotic writer that Allen himself would have played in earlier years. At first he seemed out-of-place, but I think that's part of the joke, and like Banderas, I was impressed with his subtle comedy.

I am a Woody Allen devotee, and although I found "You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger" lacks most of his intelligent wit, it still had his subtle jabs at his characters who each represent facets of today's society. And I still recommend it because it's better than most other films you can find.