Woody Allen is getting meaner in his old age.
With his latest, "You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger," he creates a cast of characters who deliberately hurt each other, and no one ends up likable.
They all approach personal relationships like most people view cars: When the old one gets a bit worn, you trade it in for a newer model. And no one seems to recognize that, at least in life, everyone has a bit of mileage.
This story of dim bulbs revolves around two couples, Alfie (Anthony Hopkins) and Helena (Gemma Jones) and their daughter Sally (Naomi Watts) and her husband, Roy (Josh Brolin.)
Alfie gets the foolishness rolling when he decides that he's fast approaching death and needs a new love life - one that doesn't include his longtime wife. He thinks he's found his new soul mate after meeting the much younger Charmaine (Lucy Punch) but neglects to tell his family that he met her through a call-girl service.Helena, meanwhile, takes her sorrows to a fortune teller, who predicts that she will meet the stranger in the movie's title. So the clueless, slightly amusing Helena lets the fortune teller guide her through life without Alfie.
Sally and Roy aren't doing any better. Sally thinks her artistic ambition has been stifled by husband Roy, who is struggling to complete his second novel. So Sally begins to develop a crush on her employer, Greg (Antonio Banderas), who runs an art gallery and praises Sally's ability to spot up-and-comers.
Roy, meanwhile, spends his days staring at a new neighbor, Dia (Freida Pinto), who plays her guitar while sitting in her apartment window across the street. Roy sees her as a source of artistic renewal - or at least a source of better sex. But Roy ends up in territory more reminiscent of "Crimes and Misdemeanors" and dispels any notions that "You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger" will live up to audience expectations of being a romantic comedy.
Allen has always had a savage wit when dealing with his characters, most of whom are full of foibles and racked by existential angst. Yet with "Stranger," he mutes the humor, with only a few funny lines that nowhere near approach the levity of such classics as "Annie Hall" and "Manhattan." With those early movies, Allen always seemed to love his characters, even as he was poking fun at them, as well as himself.
He starts his latest movie, however, by quoting from "Macbeth": that life is "a tale of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
William Faulkner took the same quote as the basis of his classic experimental novel, "The Sound and the Fury." But Faulkner tempered his bleakness with notions of endurance and love, most significantly embodied in the character of Dilsey.
Allen declines to create such a character for "You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger." When asked why he bothers to continue to make movies, given the bleakness of his outlook, Allen comes back with this quip in the press notes: "It's a distraction that has its own little challenges and consequently keeps my mind off morbid thoughts."That crack is a lot funnier - and smarter - than Allen's latest.
'You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger'
Our grade: C
Genre: Comedy Drama
Running Time: 98 min
MPAA rating: R
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