I am including the review as it was originally written. This means that, as the journal has an aim towards American Studies, I needed to aim the review towards the journal's needs and audience. This means having to write some things I don't exactly believe.
However, if you wish to view an amended version, please visit my more academic blog at:
http://wickhamclayton.wordpress.com/2013/06/24/review-you-will-meet-a-tall-dark-stranger-2010-dir-woody-allen/
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You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger. Dir. Woody Allen, Prod. Letty
Aronson, Prod. Co. Mediapro / Versátil
Cinema / Gravier Productions / Antena 3 Films / Antena 3 TV / Dippermouth, USA
/ Spain, 2010. Main Cast: Gemma Jones
(Helena), Anthony Hopkins (Alfie), Naomi Watts (Sally), Josh Brolin (Roy)
It
has become increasingly difficult to know what to expect when you go to
see 'A Woody Allen Film'. Although different periods of his filmmaking
history demonstrate the use of particular aesthetic trends and themes (often
depending on collaborators), since approximately 2003 he has been consistent in
his films' generic and emotional inconsistency.
For every 'light' comedy, such as Scoop (2006) and Whatever
Works (2009), there has been a stark, weighty drama such as Match Point
(2005) or Cassandra's Dream (2007), and films that juxtapose the two to
with varying degrees of stylistic integration, such as Melinda and Melinda
(2004), and Vicky Christina Barcelona (2008).
You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger falls into the
latter category, with Allen using his trademark wit to punctuate what is likely
his most emotionally brutal film since Husbands and Wives (1992), a
fantastic feat unto itself. Tall Dark
Stranger centres on four primary characters:
Alfie Shepridge (Sir Anthony
Hopkins), who leaves his wife and in an attempt to regain his youth, and marries
a young prostitute, Charmaine (Lucy Punch), whom he hopes will give him a son
to replace the one he lost; Helena (Gemma Jones), Alfie’s jilted wife of forty
years who begins seeing a psychic to ease the pain caused by her divorce; Sally
(Naomi Watts), Alfie and Helena’s daughter who is in an unhappy marriage with
Roy (Josh Brolin), and considers having an affair with her new boss, Greg
(Antonio Banderas); and Roy, a formerly celebrated writer struggling to
maintain his success while Sally supports them, as he begins a relationship
with Dia (Freida Pinto), an engaged woman who lives across the street from
him. Ultimately, this film attempts to
draw a correlation between an individual's happiness and their ability to
delude themselves about life's harsh realities, and most painfully, how one's
delusions can affect those close to him/her.
Stylistically, Tall Dark Stranger contains almost
all of the tropes we have come to expect from Allen: warm hues in its
cinematographic palette, long takes, a 'flat' 1.85:1 aspect ratio, though the
camera is far less static than in the bulk of Allen’s catalogue. He still uses primarily monaural soundtracks
including pre-recorded music, largely old 78s, and features lots of talking and
quipping in his dialogue. As sometimes
happens with Allen's films, if he hasn't established the appropriate rapport
with an actor, the dialogue can come out stilted and forced. If his actors are comfortable using the
script as a template to build off and riff on, then the performances can seem
very fluid and integrated with the style.
However, Tall Dark Stranger proves a case of wholly sufficient
performances, without the smooth rapport of, say, Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts,
or Alan Alda. It is a pleasure to see
excellent actors such as Sir Anthony Hopkins, Naomi Watts and Josh Brolin use
their tremendous talents bringing an Allen script to life, and he manages to
also elicit wonderful performances from Gemma Jones, Lucy Punch, and Freida
Pinto, who inhabit and express Allen's ideas with grace and delicacy.
However, with Allen's aesthetic style almost firmly
cemented, with the exception of a few choice films, what has become particularly
interesting is attempting to place him within a particular national
identity. As an American filmmaker with
overtly European influences, one could claim that his early films largely set
in New York aim to create a different or alternate perspective on American
life. However, with his later films,
beginning with Match Point, Allen has set many of his later films in
Europe, creating fascinating observations about America's place in the west,
particularly with regards to cultural integration.
Tall Dark Stranger, more than any of Allen's other
European-set films, manages to place the American character, Roy, as part of a
smoothly functioning multicultural whole, who doesn't particularly stand out
amongst his British friends – Dia and her parents, who are of Asian descent are
successful and accomplished, with little attention drawn to their cultural heritage,
and also with Greg, a Spanish person who is not “othered”, despite Banderas’s
prominent Hollywood image of a swarthy, sexual Latin/Spanish man. Greg’s nationality isn’t addressed, and he is
shown as equal to the other characters because he is similarly fallible. In fact, Tall Dark Stranger arguably
focuses on how humans, regardless of cultural or national heritage, are all
deeply flawed, and often rendered impotent by our imperfections; an idea
communicated on a slightly more microcosmic scale in Manhattan (1979).
It is also significant that Allen's filmmaking style is
effectively unchanged from his displacement from America to Europe. He doesn't embody a typically 'American'
aesthetic, if there is such a thing, which tightens the interwoven cultural
strands, and highlights the film's focus on the human condition. According to Allen, it seems, whatever your
nationality, in whatever (western) country you inhabit, life is equally
difficult and disappointing, and the only thing that matters is how
successfully you can lie to yourself.
