Review: YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER - Desperation For Happiness, Whatever That Is
rating: 3.5
Woody Allen; there aren't many words in film-land more likely to create a critical divide between outright adoration, exasperated annoyance, or the half-interested puzzlement of 'oh yeah, isn't that the guy that used to be funny'. From the early knockabout idiocy of Take the Money and Run, through the comedic genius years of 'Sleeper', 'Play It Again, Sam' and 'Annie Hall', and into the up and down experimentation with more broad humour (Small Time Crooks) and pseudo-scandinavian angst (the interminable 'Interiors'), Allen has at least never been less than interesting. Perhaps his desire to be seen as a dramatist and not just a stand-up comic turned film humourist has caused an often problematic output, but in the last few years it has added a welcome sardonic and darkly funny streak, particularly when his natural ability to find amusement in human behaviour is balanced with his less easily formed desire to create serious cinema.
Moving out of his geographical comfort zone of New York may have played a part as the first film to crack this delicate balancing act was 2005s Match Point, a smart and caustic tale of ambition set in London; but our seduction into Allens new found voice was naturally short-lived, his mercurial talents never likely to leave us in such a comfortable and recognisable place. We had the imperfect but oddly beguiling Scoop in 2006 which successfully paired Hugh Jackman and Scarlett Johansson; then the woeful return to Londons streets in the straight drama of Cassandras Dream starring Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell as the worlds unlikeliest cockney brethren only served to show that Allen was never going to be the reliable James Cameron of character study. Now, after returning to New York in Whatever Works, and flirting with Barcelona in the sublime Vicky Cristina Barcelona, hes planted himself back in the British capital with his latest, a mainly successful tale of what happens when your entire existence is focussed upon what you think will make you happy, and the delusions that come along with it. Being a Woody Allen film of course, theres never any trouble in getting together a stellar groups of actors to put all the pieces together, and thats no small reason why You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger is as enjoyable as it is. 
Anthony Hopkins, who should have the trademark effortless gravitas permanently attached to his name, is the wealthy Alfie Shebritch who wakes one morning, mortality staring him in the face. Abandoning his wife Helena, an endearingly crackpot Gemma Jones, he takes the well-trodden route of cars and gyms to try and stave off reality, culminating in the decision to hook up with, and then marry daft call-girl Charmaine (the brilliant Lucy Punch), a kind of south London Mighty Aphrodite, oblivious to consequence (and perhaps oblivious to what the word evens means). Alfie and Helenas daughter Sally (Naomi Watts, mutating easily back into her childhood Englishness) is caught between her parents rupture, her new job in the art gallery of the suave and handsome Greg (Antonio Banderas), and her frustrated writer husband Roy (Josh Brolin), who exposed to success years before has consequently failed to capitalise on his early promise. Unable to hold down a job for fear of invading his writing time he finds himself drawn to the mysterious, young flat-dweller across the way (Freida Pinto). Sally, meanwhile, has to also cope with the equally unbalanced behaviour of her mother as she takes up Sallys advice to see a fortune-teller. What seemed like a good idea to focus Helenas mind on something else turns into a complete belief system, even down to the inevitable promise that shell meet a tall dark stranger and find love again. 
This theme of the desperate idea that the world will only make sense if you get exactly what you want, that self-involvement is the key to happiness doesnt make You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger sound particularly light-hearted, and its not but it is caustically funny. Even the darkest character Roy and his grasping attempts to literally steal his publishing future is suffused with bitter comedy; and for all of them, theres the pained realisation that being deluded about ones desires is generally a one-way trip to disappointment. Although not on a par with his best Allen has managed to craft a worthwhile intermission before he heads back to France for Midnight in Paris. There are moments amidst the characters downward spirals that Allens own comedic nebbishness might be a welcome break from the films harder humour, but perhaps, directly opposite to the people hes created, he realised that even in the making of this story you cant have it all. Delusion is the films force majeure, and its perhaps fitting that in the end Helena, the most down-trodden and most deluded character in the piece is the one that actually secures some kind of happiness, even if she has gotten there through hardly any choices of her own. 
You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger is released in the U.K. today.