Review by Spencer Gordon
Photo provided by You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger
You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger
Directed By Woody Allen
Starring Naomi Watts, Josh Brolin, Freida Pinto, Anthony Hopkins, Antonio Banderas, and Gemma Jones
Rated R for some language
Woody Allen (Annie Hall, Vicky Christina Barcelona) is still an icon in the film business, as well as the master of the romantic comedy. His latest film, You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger, is similar to most of his other works, yet the filmmaking, acting, and writing clicked a lot better in Stranger than in some of his latest films. For example, 2008’s Vicky Christina Barcelona followed yet another sort of love triangle, but the writing focused a lot on the sex in the film. Allen seemed to want his actors to portray their characters very mysteriously. In Stranger, the director instead focused on exploring the character’s inner emotions and motivations, which produced better performances.
The film introduces Helena (Jones) whose husband Alfie (Hopkins) walked out on her after over 40 years together to marry a prostitute. Since learning of Alfie’s betrayal, Helena has found comfort in a fortuneteller who gives her loads of positive predictions about her life’s future. The predictions bring Helena out of her depression, which allows her to visit her daughter Sally (Watts) and Sally’s husband Roy (Brolin). Sally and Roy are at a point in their relationship where they fight constantly, which gets them interested in other people. Roy finds inspiration in the a beautiful woman in red across the ally named Dia (Pinto), while Sally finds her self wooed by her new boss Greg (Banderas). The story is clichéd, but so are most of Allen’s films. It’s the great filmmaking from Allen that makes each of his films unique and usually quite good despite the simple plot.
Stranger does a great job exploring each character’s wants and needs effectively, which allowed me to laugh harder when each of their stories started to get pretty outrageous. It could have been my personal bias with the beauty of Freida Pinto (Slumdog Millionaire) but the story between Dia and Roy was my favorite. I loved how Allen always dressed her in red, which made her the person to look at whenever she appeared on the screen. Her love interest Roy also made a memorable character. He said some of the craziest things to woo Dia. Some had me shaking my head in disbelief at how inappropriate they were, like when Roy asks Dia to keep her blinds open while she undresses.
Acting is a huge aspect of film, and if a director gets it wrong, the film won’t be able to hook the audience into the story. One tool that can help this problem is the camera and the way the film is shot. Judging by Stranger, Allen understands this after a very long career. He knows that when one has an all-star cast, like he did with this movie, that the camera needs to be more an observing tool, not letting edits and cuts degrade an actor’s performance. During scenes involving many actors at once, Allen pressed record, and then followed the scene into different rooms with different people without turning it off. This allowed the scene to build up emotion and it really put me on the edge of my seat, despite the film being a romantic comedy rather than a thriller.
This film was made with the fine attention to detail that I really enjoy. All of Allen’s characters are well-crafted and the script is witty and smart. I think it’s sad that films such as this don’t make their way into mainstream pop culture. Although Jackass 3D was the most successful film to ever come out in October, personally I’d much rather Meet a Tall Dark Stranger at the movies.
Grade: A For the great acting performances, witty script, and superb cinematography.
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