Part of Woody Allen’s stature as a director is that the greatest actors of the day stand in line to audition for his films. Anthony Hopkins, Naomi Watts, Josh Brolin, Antonio Banderas, Freida Pinto, Gemma Jones, Lucy Punch? Big deal. Vilmos Zsigmond on camera (their third collaboration)? Great. So is the movie any good?
Allen has made so many films in the last century (46 and counting since 1966), the danger of his talent being taken for granted seems greater than ever.
“You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger” follows two couples from different generations, falling like dominoes away from their partners towards someone or something new. Alfie (Anthony Hopkins) leaves Helena (Gemma Jones) for Charmaine (Lucy Punch), a professional “companion” half his age.
Their daughter, Sally (Naomi Watts), falls for her boss, Greg (Antonio Banderas), who runs an art gallery. Her husband Roy (Josh Brolin), a writer more concerned with fame than art, longs for the flamenco guitar-playing Dia (Freida Pinto) perched on a windowsill across the way. After meeting Roy, who admits he’s been virtually stalking her, she leaves her fiancé the day of their wedding.
Then there is Helena, who finds the companion promised by Cristal (Pauline Collins) the soothsayer -- whose predictions are as accurate as a bag of fortune cookies – when new-age proprietor Jonathan (Roger Ashton-Griffiths) enters her life. As promised, he is indeed a complete stranger.
The movie opens on a sunlit London street. Vilmos Zsigmond’s overexposed film and Allen's unlikely subplots spinning off like wind devils suggest what’s happening is all a dream. Certainly one of the characters will wake up and realize how precious and fragile relationships can be. But “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger” is no “Palm Beach Story.”
If anyone else made this film, with less talented actors and crew, it would likely be characterized as “dime-store Woody.” “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger” isn’t perfect; Roy’s (Josh Brolin) allure is cofounding (maybe he and Antonio Banderas should have switched roles?). And Allen has covered much of this territory before, though maybe not from such emotional distance. There is little sentimentality here. If you want to think about love and life while having a few sardonic laughs along the way, “Stranger” is worth seeing.
“You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger” is in limited release beginning today. Go HERE for times and locations.
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