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You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger
| Released |
18 March 2011 |
| Director |
Woody Allen |
Starring
|
Anthony Hopkins, Gemma Jones, Naomi Watts, Josh Brolin, Lucy Punch, Antonio Banderas, Freida Pinto |
| Writer(s) |
Woody Allen |
Producer(s)
|
Letty Aronson, Jaume Roures, Stephen Tenenbaum |
| Origin |
United States, Spain |
| Running Time |
98 minutes |
| Genre |
Comedy, romance |
| Rating |
12A |
|
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A load of crystal balls.
In the last few moment of You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger, the film makes a good attempt at reviewing itself as the narrator paraphrases Shakespeare, describing what we have just seen as a lot of sound and fury that in the end, signify nothing. I tend to agree on two accounts but with regards to the “fury”, well I must have missed that somehow...
First things first though, can we all agree that Woody Allen’s best work is so far behind him at this stage that the statute of limitations is well and truly up? Apart from the superior Whatever Works, his late-period output has been so far removed from the near-perfection of his early days that it may as well be the work of a different man. So let’s look objectively at You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger which, by anyone’s standards is a lazy, uninspired collection of clichés delivered by some of the most irritating and self-regarding characters ever committed to celluloid. Even the narrator sounds infuriatingly smug.
Allen’s fourth film set in London centres on two troubled couples; the recently divorced Helena and Alfie (Gemma Jones and Anthony Hopkins), their daughter Sally and her husband Roy (Naomi Watts and Josh Brolin). The former couple have fallen apart as Alfie has a late-life crisis and Helena takes solace in the pronouncements of a phoney psychic. Sally meanwhile is tiring of her husband’s faltering writing career and both partners’ eyes begin to stray; his to Freida Pinto, hers to Antonio Banderas. It all progresses exactly as you would expect it too, without insight or interest.
The jaunty jazz soundtrack and colourful vision of modern London suggest a light, frothy comedy. The comedy, however, is terminally lacking- unless you count the schadenfreude to be had in the mortifying lows that some of the characters descend to. Even the star-studded cast fail to lend the piece any cohesion. Brolin and Hopkins fail to impress with pedestrian performances while the usually excellent Naomi Watts seems decidedly uncomfortable as the one-note Sally. Lucy Punch meanwhile as a brassy hooker seems to have wandered in from the set of a Carry On film. Only Gemma Jones stands out here, in a performance with more depth than the rest of the cast could muster between them.
Yes, this is certainly two hours of interminable sound that in anyone’s life will signify nothing. On second thoughts, maybe the “fury” refers to the reaction you’ll have while watching.
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Linda O’Brien |
