I think there are few directors working today who are as hit-or-miss as Woody Allen. The man gets a cherry of a deal from movie studios: in essence it reads "You get one film a year, it can be anything you want, we'll put it out but financing is up to you".
With such autonomy comes brilliance like MATCH POINT or VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA. And with such autonomy also comes a lot of crap.
YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER isn't exactly crap...but it lands well short of brilliance too. The film is about a web of marital restlessness, with Sally (Naomi Watts) at its centre. Her parents feel dissatisfied and split up, her boss feels dissatisfied and strays, and even her husband feels an urge to stray.
All of this provides for wonderful setup. But the big flaw with TALL DARK STRANGER is that it never seems to take these stories very far. The moral of the story is understood very early on, and never expanded upon even though we are reminded of the lesson four or five times.
The film looks charming, an certainly has some moments of heartache...such as when we learn where Greg's (Antonio Banderas) heart really lies...but most of the fables and chapters seem to stop a step short. Thus the film feels like taking a sighseeing tour of The Empire State Building and never taking the elevator up.
Amusingly, the film opens and closes with the song "When You Wish Upon a Star"...a song that contains the lyrics Like a bolt out of the blue / Fate steps in and sees you through. For the characters of STRANGER it doesn't feel like fate is seeing them through anything. It feels like their own selfishness is forcing fate's hand - and when that happens, the result doesn't quite 'see them through' so much as it just ferries them to a different place of malcontent.
An interesting idea - but nothing memorable.
YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER opens this week in NY and LA
Monday, September 20, 2010
TIFF Review: YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER
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7 comments:
Is this the film with Freida Pinto in it. If so, how can it be bad?
I'm kidding of course. I'm in the minority who didn't even like Vicky Christina Barcelona, so I don't have much expectations for this.
Great TIFF coverage by the by.
Allen's latest work hasn't justified any of the acclaim its gotten.
@ Edgar... Glad you dug my TIFF coverage. Knowing that you and a lot of others were following my work this year made it much more worthwhile.
Admittedly, Pinto was easily my favorite thing about the film.
@ Fitz... I'm a big fan of VCL and Match Point, but nothing else he's done lately has blown my hair bac.
Give me a dvd copy of MANHATTAN any day.
Hatter, I have to disagree with your first statement. Although Allen has made a few bad movies in this latter half of his career, I can probably count most of them on one hand. Sure, some of them aren't classics like they used to be but they are at least interesting and better than most of what passes for movies these days, so please, give me minor Allen, I'll take it any day.
Thats disappointing! But you are right, if someone makes about a movie a year, he is bound to make some mistakes. Remember Scoop? No? Exactly my point.
@ Mike... True, when I say "A bad Woody Allen film", I mean to say that it isn't on a level with his best...which is of course some the all-time best films.
So yes, I'd much rather someone went to see TALL DARK STRANGER over say DEVIL...but by the same token, I'd rather someone stayed in and rented MATCH POINT over both.
@ Vanessa... I didn't see SCOOP, but I have to tip my cap to a director who is able to keep complete creative control in this very meddling industry.
Damn. I'm deeply disappointed here. Woody is one of my favorites and even I wouldn't call Match Point or VCB brilliant. I will see this as soon as it comes out because I am a devout fan, but I am now not expecting very much at all, if I was expecting much to begin with. The guy needs to take a sabbatical.
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