You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger: Movie Review

You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger: Movie Review

Cast: Josh Brolin, Naomi Watts, Freida Pinto, Antonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins, Gemma Jones, Lucy Punch, Pauline Collins
Director: Woody Allen

Woody Allen's latest is set once again in London.

Hopkins and Jones play Alfie and Helena, who are at the later stages of their life. When Alfie has an impeding old age crisis and splits from his wife Helena of many years, she starts seeing a psychic (Pauline Collins). Meanwhile, Alfie and Helena's daughter Sally (Watts) is just starting a new job at an art gallery with boss Antonio Banderas as her husband Roy (Brolin) is waiting to hear about his latest book and if it will be published. But Roy's obsessed with the pretty woman in a neighbouring tower block (Pinto) and Alfie announces plans to marry a much younger woman, Charmaine (Punch) - it's all a tale of intersecting lives and desires in this portmanteau piece.

Basically, You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger is not one of Allen's finest.

It's a great ensemble cast, but there's no real punch to the piece in any shape or form, with hardly any of the characters worthy of you latching onto and supporting in one way or another. While director Allen makes London look truly beautiful and does a brilliant job coralling his actors together, it's the script which lets him down, providing hardly any humour or sophistication as the tale plays out.

Sure, the voiceover claims it's all about insignificance but the whole thing is so slight, it never does more than irritate you at the end after you've invested time in these characters.

You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger suffers having a lack of real identity; and while the cast is impressive, you can't help but feel they didn't have enough to work with in this. A shame, then, that a psychic couldn't have told Allen how to improve it.

Rating: