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Edition: U.S. Article Save Email Print Reprints Most Popular Most Shared Final Thai crackdown feared as guests evacuate | Video 3:09am EDT Volcanic ash grounds hundreds of European flights | Video 3:05am EDT Britain says to ease no-fly decree on Heathrow 12:58am EDT Europe blocks U.S. emergency exit door 16 May 2010 BP says progress in effort to contain oil spill | Video 3:15am EDT Thailand toughens stand against spiraling protests | Video 16 May 2010 Japan PM's dilemma over U.S. base deepens before poll 16 May 2010 UPDATE 1-WHO study has no clear answer on phones and cancer 16 May 2010 Iran, Brazil, Turkey sign nuclear swap deal 3:06am EDT FOREX-Euro extends losses to hit 4-yr low on debt woes 1:21am EDT Final Thai crackdown feared as guests evacuate | Video 3:09am EDT Heavy metal veteran Ronnie James Dio dies, aged 67 16 May 2010 Video of American drowned saving son shocks Italy 16 May 2010 Google says mistakenly got wireless data 16 May 2010 Africa's lake Tanganyika warming fast, life dying 16 May 2010 Iran, Brazil, Turkey sign nuclear swap deal 3:06am EDT Britain says to ease no-fly decree on Heathrow 12:58am EDT Volcanic ash grounds hundreds of European flights | Video 3:05am EDT UPDATE 1-WHO study has no clear answer on phones and cancer 16 May 2010 Gold rises toward peak, investors lift ETF to record 2:00am EDT "Dark Stranger" a serviceable Woody Allen comedy Kirk Honeycutt Mon May 17, 2010 12:43am EDT Related News Woody Allen ushers "Tall Dark Stranger" into Cannes Sat, May 15 2010 Woody Allen ushers "Tall Dark Stranger" into Cannes Sat, May 15 2010 "Wall Street" a powerfully told sequel Fri, May 14 2010 "Wall Street" a powerfully told sequel Fri, May 14 2010 Teen actress flexes muscles in "Kick-Ass" Mon, Apr 19 2010 CANNES (Hollywood Reporter) - The grass is always greener in "You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger," Woody Allen's roundelay of perplexed characters chasing illusions rather than reality. Entertainment | Film As a film from Allen's ongoing British/European period, where he spins out comic trifles or morality plays that drift seemingly free of national context, the comedy is more amusing than most, though it lacks the vibrant spirit of "Vicky Cristina Barcelona." This is Woody in a bemused mood, devilishly complicating his characters' lives with follies and foibles of their own making until he ties each protagonist into a comic pretzel. Then he takes a tea break. Its Cannes launch can only help "Stranger" in those European territories where his films tend to find receptive audiences. Back home, the film will do modest business along the lines of most of his comedies. The film's multiple London-based stories all concern characters seeking shortcuts to happiness. Each one thinks that if only X will happen, then I can live happily ever after. But even if that were true, no one has any patience: Each is determined to grab X right away. Naturally, a fake fortune-teller -- isn't that a redundancy? -- gets involved. Anthony Hopkins' Alfie -- perhaps a wink and a nod to Michael Caine's '60s-era sexual predator -- awakens one morning to discover that he's old and married to a wife, Helena (Gemma Jones), of the same age. So he bolts married life for a regimen of strenuous workouts and bachelor quarters. When this doesn't swiftly restore his youth, he decides to marry a call girl, Charmaine (Lucy Punch), in hopes she will give him a son. The couple's grown daughter Sally (Naomi Watts) sends her mother to a charlatan fortune-teller (Pauline Collins) just to keep her mom from thoughts of suicide. The fortune-teller promises her she'll meet "a stranger." And indeed she does in a recent widower (Roger Ashton-Griffiths) who believes in spiritualism. Meanwhile, Sally's brooding novelist husband, Roy (Josh Brolin), appears washed-out after a "promising" first novel. While awaiting word from a publisher on his latest manuscript, Roy spends his days gazing longingly at a new and beautiful neighbor in the next building. When he contrives to meet her, Dia ("Slumdog Millionaire's" Freida Pinto) is so charming he falls madly in love. But she's already engaged. With her husband unwilling to commit to raising a family, Sally takes a job in an art gallery, where she develops a crush on her boss, Greg (Antonio Banderas). But she can't tell if Greg, who has his own matrimonial miseries, shares her feelings. Spouses feel so disposable in this movie. But be careful what you wish for, Allen seems to say. For instance, Dia does return Roy's ardor, but what does he have to offer her when his marriage crumbles and the publisher rejects his novel? But wait, a miracle appears to Roy: A friend dies in a car crash and Roy may just have the only copy of the friend's dynamite new novel that no one else has seen! This is so much easier than having to sit down and write another damn book. Not too surprisingly, though, hookers don't necessarily make ideal second wives, nor does the woman next door. Indeed the film's best visual image is seeing Roy, newly moved into Dia's flat, gazing back across the building separation at his ex-wife across the way. The illusions have switched places! There's not much more to the movie than this, however. Its writer-director mines a few good laughs from these situations along with more awkward moments where he forces issues or characters behave inconsistently. Since he has moved more or less permanently behind the camera and no longer acts in his films, Allen plays God with his characters much more. They feel more like puppets rather than human beings with natural instincts and lucid senses. True, the stories here are about people acting irrationally. But you always understood the emotions behind bad behavior in "Annie Hall," "Manhattan" and "Hannah and Her Sisters." Here decisions get made off-camera or people act with an abruptness, if not a frivolity, that betrays no thought process at all. Alfie suffers nary a thought over the family he devastated. Sally never wonders why she even wants to have babies with a selfish lout. Everyone is single-minded and obsessive to the point a viewer can all but predict lines and attitudes before a scene begins. Jones stands apart perhaps because hers is the only character that actually changes over the course of the movie. Hopkins never finds the key to his character's past-middle-age crisis. Brolin, Watts and Punch all have one-note characters. Banderas is hardly in the movie and, like Pinto, seems cast for smoldering dark looks. The movie ends just when complications start to set in, which makes you wonder how invested Allen really is in the little melodramas within this comedy. Entertainment Film © Copyright 2010 Thomson Reuters Editorial Editions: Africa Arabic Argentina Brazil Canada China France Germany India Italy Japan Latin America Mexico Russia Spain United Kingdom United States Reuters Contact Us Advertise With Us Help Journalism Handbook Archive Site Index Video Index Analyst Research Mobile Newsletters RSS Podcasts Widgets Your View Labs Thomson Reuters Copyright Disclaimer Privacy Professional Products Professional Products Support Financial Products About Thomson Reuters Careers Online Products Acquisitions Monthly Buyouts Venture Capital Journal International Financing Review Project Finance International PEhub.com PE Week Thomson Reuters is the world's largest international multimedia news agency, providing investing news, world news, business news, technology news, headline news, small business news, news alerts, personal finance, stock market, and mutual funds information available on Reuters.com, video, mobile, and interactive television platforms. Thomson Reuters journalists are subject to an Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests. NYSE and AMEX quotes delayed by at least 20 minutes. Nasdaq delayed by at least 15 minutes. For a complete list of exchanges and delays, please click here.

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