Mediapro, Versátil Cinema, Gravier Productions
Gemma Jones, Pauline Collins, Anthony Hopkins, Rupert Frazer, Kelly Harrison, Naomi Watts, Josh Brolin, Freida Pinto, Lucy Punch, Eleanor Gecks, Antonio Banderas, Ewen Bremner, Anna Friel
This movie follows a pair of married couples, Alfie (Anthony Hopkins) and Helena (Gemma Jones), and older couple and their daughter Sally (Naomi Watts) and husband Roy (Josh Brolin), as their passions, ambitions, and anxieties lead them into trouble. Everyone is having a crisis. After Alfie leaves Helena to pursue his lost youth and meets a young beautiful call girl named Charmaine (Lucy Punch) and longs for the son he has wanted. Helena abandons rationality and surrenders her life to the loopy advice of a charlatan fortune teller (Pauline Collins) and a crush on a similar man who believes the supernatural like she does. Meanwhile, unhappy in her marriage, Sally develops a crush on her handsome art gallery owner boss, Greg (Antonio Banderas), while Roy, a novelist nervously awaiting the response to his latest manuscript, becomes moonstruck over Dia (Frieda Pinto), a mystery woman who catches his gaze through a nearby window while taking off her dress. Things speed along at an amazing pace. Sometimes once they egg shell is broken, you can’t put Humpty Dumpty together again.
This is a little bit humor and lot of character development. Each of the stories unfolds slowly and the players all work off each other toward a mess of climax. Nothing turns out they way they wanted and I guess everyone is a bit unhappy at the end, but at the same time, everyone seems to get what they deserve. It seems like basic human nature is to be unhappy with what we have and looking for something better, only to find out that they didn’t get what they wanted after all. This is not a snappy, funny movie. It is very cerebral. It has a bit of humor, but is not really a comedy at all. The story is begun with a narrator, and in the end closes it out for us. Basically he says we all believe what we want to believe and the illusion is often much better than the medicine. That about wraps up the story. It’s definitely a decent watch for an old fashioned period drama. A lot of people did not appreciate this film, but it’s directed by Woody Allen, and as such is typical Woody material. There is no point to the story, no eventual goal, it’s just an allenesque view into the lives of two couples and the situations they’ve put themselves in. If you’re not looking for a lot of message, but willing to watch a character study, you might find it enjoyable. I have say I did.
EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog
Movie Review - You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010) {R},
