Ich sehe den Mann deiner Träume

This film is about a family of mother, father, daughter and son-in-law, who go through various stages in their lives, creating an ocean of emotions that they have to deal with.

"You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger" tells the superficially wonderful life of an old man, who feels his life slipping away as he grows old. He leaves his wife, causing her to become neurotic, depending on a clairvoyant to sooth her nerves. Their daughter is trapped in an unhappy marriage, while her husband is dying to prove himself that he is still worthy of something. Given such well developed and convincing backgrounds, "You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger" can only be a great film on character analysis. There is not a moment of boredom, all the characters are attractive and engaging in their own way. In true Woody Allen style, the characters are quirky, yet interesting and adorable. The characters are not as paranoid as in previous films, which is a departure from his usual style. It is still a great effort, and I enjoyed watching it a lot.

"Well, as Sally told Roy, sometimes the illusions work better than the medicine."

As far as Woody Allen films go, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger isn't out of the ordinary. The story is the usual mixture of completely unpredictable good and bad events, that seem to happen to his characters regardless of whether they deserve them or not. Much like life. Unintended consequences, fate, and the meaninglessness of it all is once again the underlying message, all presented through the lives of the wealthy and discontent. There's less humor than some of his movies, a little more than others, and I think that most fans of Allen's work will find it agreeable, if much less neurotic than something like Annie Hall. 

What does set this apart from some of the director's other work is the cast. Sure, Allen has a history of working with some excellent actors. This is the best cast he's had, in my opinion, primarily because I'm such a fan of Naomi Watts. To see her joined by Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins, Frieda Pinto, Lucy Punch, Antonio Banderas, Gemma Jones, and others...well, that's quite an ensemble. 

Overall, I was satisfied with You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger. Allen doesn't stretch himself much with this one, but the cast makes it memorable.

*****SPOILERS***** People who go to Woody Allen's films should know by now that Allen is an agnostic when it comes to God, and a skeptic when it comes to anything "supernatural", especially "New Agey" beliefs. That doesn't stop him from using God, religion, and New Age beliefs in his films. In "Alice", one of Allen's best films, he uses a lot of "New Agey" beliefs and supernatural events. Those people posting here who think that Allen is "endorsing" fortune-telling, psychics, and reincarnation are WAY off track. Allen is using those things to compare and contrast the "ordinary" beliefs and actions of "ordinary" people. The husband, daughter, and son-in-law think that the wife/mother/mother-in-law is "delusional" because she believes in fortune-telling and reincarnation. BUT, does she REALLY believe in those things? Or, does she pretend to because it helps her to "get what she wants" and the "blame" goes to the fortune-teller friends and/or her own "nuttiness"? She doesn't want to lend her ungrateful daughter even MORE money------blame the fortune-teller. She wants to criticize her son-in-law for wasting his life trying to become a famous writer instead of becoming a doctor------that's what the fortune-teller said. She knows these kinds of things still "sting" her ungrateful family members, but it's not because SHE is being critical or mean------the fortune-teller is saying these things! She would rather be thought of as "nutty" than "judgmental and selfish". And, she knows her husband is the "nutty" and delusional one-----he thinks he can stop the aging process and death by working out at the gym and marrying a woman young enough to be his grand-daughter. The daughter is delusional because she thinks her boss has romantic feelings for her when he has never said or done anything to give that impression. The son-in-law is delusional because he thinks he is a great writer and thinks he can actually get away with passing someone else's writing off as his own. All these "delusions" are "ordinary" ones that humans have All The Time, so we don't recognize them as "delusions". We save that judgment for the "real nutty" things like psychics and reincarnation. Allen says, why are some delusions "nutty" but others aren't? Well, I guess our OWN delusions are NOT nutty, but other people's delusions ARE nutty. Does that make us delusional? Nutty? Or Human?

Allegedly the plot was born to prove that believing in anything, no matter how silly and incongruous, makes people happier.

It's been proved many times that people find consolation in anything that gives them hope and in this story we start with the most hopeless case of Helena, a middle-aged, wealthy housewife abandoned by her husband, Alfie.

Helena is not smart and starts seeing Cristal, a clairvoyant, for comfort. At first, Helena desperately wants Alfie back, but slowly, Cristal convinces her that she can do better.

Helena's daughter, Sally is going through the final stages of her marriage with Roy, a nasty piece of work, who having got lucky with his first book, decided to pursue a writing career, which is proving disastrous.

Their fragile balance is shatter respectively by Sally's new boss, a sexy Banderas as Greg and by female neighbour Dia.

A final wheel is set in motion when Alfie, after much grief in the dating world, hooks up with a call girl and decides to marry her. Like way too many before him, Alfie's in for some nasty surprises.

Things don't go much better for Roy and Sally, with the exception of Helena. Having started as the most unhappy and unlikely to straighten her life, thanks to Cristal's bad advice, but most of all, to her own "faith" in Cristal, Helena ends up as the sole winner of some sort.

To prove once more that life is unfair and chance is more important than intelligence. Good movie, albeit depressing.

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, the latest Woody Allen's film is light, airy, lacy, elegant, sad, bittersweet and tender, just like a Boccherini musical piece for guitar that a beautiful young woman was playing sitting next to the window in a London apartment/flat. It is also funny, sharp, mocks the absurdity of existence, and manages to highlight the insignificance and callousness of the characters yet not to judge them while letting them search for "bell' alma inamorata", and are not we all searching? Allen is still the master of his craft, the creator of charming dra-medies. His favorite and constant themes of lives and deaths of the relationships, of growing older and refusing to accept it, of trying to postpone the inevitable meeting with a "tall dark stranger", of struggle to find the reason in a tale, "full of sound and fury", are all here. But he knows how to look at the familiar material from the unusual angle by mixing masterfully humor and seriousness, light touch and insight in the right proportions to explore the desires, longings, and motivations of the characters. One of the themes Allen was interested while working on the Tall Dark Stranger was faith in something because it is for humans to prefer the power of self-delusions over the darkness of bitter truths. He said: "This sounds so bleak when I say it, but we need some delusions to keep us going. And the people who successfully delude themselves seem happier than the people who can't." Sounds too serious but it is Allen's film, and is ironic, witty, and light. I ask myself why I love Allen's films so much and always wait for them impatiently. One of the reasons, he makes them for adults and about adults. His target audiences want to see a clever intelligent film without being manipulated or spoon fed. I admire Allen for respecting his viewers: "I never write down to them. I always assume that they're all as smart as I am . . . if not smarter". Or, more likely, I love his films because the beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, and my eyes are always open to the beauty of his films. They are so perfectly constructed and framed. They look and sound terrific. While watching them, I don't understand how can they not be liked and admired by everyone? His short films are not small to me. I need them and I always will.