USA
3*
Director:
Woody Allen
Screenwriter:
Woody Allen
Director of Photography:
Vilmos Zsigmond
Running time: 98 minutes
Another year, another film from the neurotic New Yorker. The extraordinarily prolific Woody Allen is back in London, after the enjoyable but forgettable interlude that was Whatever Works. “Enjoyable but forgettable” seems to be a very appropriate way to qualify his recent films. In fact, the narrator of his most recent film, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, admits that the story is all “sound and fury, signifying nothing”. And indeed it is.
As usual, the cast is a veritable smorgasbord of talent: Naomi Watts, Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins, Antonio Banderas and Gemma Jones are all delightful to watch. And Lucy Punch, representing a cross-section of the cheaper side of East London, is as fantastic as her character is grating.
Having recently separated, Alfie and Helena (Hopkins and Jones) go their own ways: Alfie ends up marrying a prostitute (Punch), while Helena blindly follows the advice of a clairvoyant who can’t see beyond Helena’s own desires and her pocketbook. Meanwhile, Sally (Watts), the daughter of Alfie and Helena, starts to work at an art gallery and gradually falls in love with her boss (Banderas), while her husband Roy (Brolin) is struggling to finish his latest novel and regularly sneaks a peek through the rear window at a young woman on the other side of the courtyard.
There are misunderstandings, no lack of lust, and a risky measure of self-delusion on the part of many of the characters, and it is good fun to watch the stew come to a boil. But the stories branch out in every direction and I’ve grown tired of Allen’s jazz soundtrack, which attracts too much attention. Also, it is perhaps a sign of Allen’s auteur sensibility that his films all look the same in spite of having different DoPs on every production, but with a cameraman like Vilmos Zsigmond at the helm, I would have expected a look that is a little more risky. No such luck.
The film is lukewarm at best and while it is a nice temperature for this relaxing 100-minute distraction, it is hardly worth remembering and will be all but forgotten by the time his next film rolls round – which should be any day now.