Vous allez rencontrer un bel et sombre inconnu

The goofy comedian has always been a pessimist. True love has never existed in his films and his couples rarely find happiness together. Despite of this, his films has never been as scary as this.

What started as comedic twists and a taste of the bittersweet life has slowly evolved into a harsh, but tragically honest depiction of life. With You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger the evolution seems to have been perfected.

The goofiness is basically gone and what's left plays like a drama with darkly humorous undertones. But it might just as well play as an horror film. Tragic, raw and beautiful. It's not his best, god knows he has done a lot of great work, but it's by far his most "pure" work to date.

Is delusions the only plays you can find happiness? Is the ideas of love and friendship simply a charade we hide behind? Do we simply get bored of each other? You know there's at least some truth here, but though I'm not ready to accept it all the very thought of it gives me chills.

Conveyed with such fabulous performances, particularly from Gemma Jones, and as is often the case with Allen, one heck of a script, Allen creates the perfect atmosphere. To put it in the simplest way possible - this is pretty close to being the perfect feel bad movie.

"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.

Anthony Hopkins is always a joy to behold on screen. If you're further into things British and your "Masterpiece Theater" memory is long, you will recognize wife #1 as the incredible "Duchess Of Duke Street" Gemma Jones, making a rare appearance on America's big screen. Like Allen's more recent films, save for the British accents, you could be in any city of urban sophisticates and wannabes. The London settings ultimately don't give the film a deep sense of any place in particular. But as Anglophiles have not been well-served of late Stateside, this release will have to do until some grand historic costume epic sweeps us back into a dark theater. All new Woody Allen comedies are also for those who don't dwell on the director's personal life and still enjoy him as a film-maker of thoughtful,lighter fare. Sure, his earliest films were more ground-breaking and side-splitting, but we've accepted that for eons now. Not an obvious Oscar contender as a whole, many of its performances are indeed worthy of consideration. Sony Pictures Classics' marketing is a good fit for American audiences who see the imprint of a studio's "for select audiences" arm as a modern-day film lovers' "Good Housekeeping" seal of approval -- proclaiming here is a work of cinema, several cuts above the mindless teen romp, action-adventure or horror rampage. Film comedy choices for 40-somethings on up have been bleak of late. As the Oscar race moves into its final quarter lap, a visit with this "Stranger" will brighten things up a bit. My 6 rating is relative to the quality of 2010's domestic crop. It could just as well have been a 5 if there had been more comedies worth $14 since January. But especially for Allen devotees, all is relative, in that sense at least.

In "You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger" we are swiftly introduced to the complicated plot with who is married to whom, who is cheating with whom, and who is in love with whom. I found that the slowest part. I wasn't able to find much of Allen's underlying comedy in all of the criss-crossing relationships.

The comedy comes with the arrival of Charmaine (Lucy Punch) - the "actress" that Anthony Hopkins is marrying. I found it interesting that at the sight of this most ludicrous relationship, the other characters, all at various stages of mid-life crises, then pushed forward to get their lives and relationships sorted out. Allen didn't spend much time analyzing the various loves and consequences, more just saying here they are, you can laugh at them if you wish. I laughed a little bit.

I found that Anthony Hopkins and Lucy Punch stood out of this all-star cast. Hopkins' character, nearing 70, married the much younger Punch and joined a gym after suffering his mid-life crisis. Antonio Banderas played a gallery owner and I was quite impressed with his subtle comedy and muted sexual presence. Josh Brolin played the neurotic writer that Allen himself would have played in earlier years. At first he seemed out-of-place, but I think that's part of the joke, and like Banderas, I was impressed with his subtle comedy.

I am a Woody Allen devotee, and although I found "You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger" lacks most of his intelligent wit, it still had his subtle jabs at his characters who each represent facets of today's society. And I still recommend it because it's better than most other films you can find.

An odd film for Allen, neither an overt comedy or one of his dark serious films (e.g. 'Crimes and Misdemeanors'). This is a 'light' drama, something he hasn't done much. While far from Allen's best work, I felt more warmly towards it than most of the press, especially after a second viewing. Some of the criticisms are valid; the voice over narration feels out of tone with the film, and at times tells us too literally what we already know. Yet, in the current American cinema, how many film-makers are getting to even and try and address the complex subtle questions of grown-up relationships, aging and the fear of death, and the lies we tell ourselves to get through it all? Or deal with the paradox that humans seem to need something to believe in, and yet that same belief can also lead us astray? Or give great older actors like Anthony Hopkins and Gemma Jones really meaty roles? As long as Allen keeps asking questions, he'll remain a voice worth listening to.