Review: You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger

This review was intended for publication in the Journal for American Studies in Turkey, but was dropped as a) there were too many submissions and b) I already have a book review appearing.

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.