You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger Presents Several Stories a Woody Allen Way By Art Byrd

Woody Allen, the genius behind such legendary films as Annie Hall and Manhattan, releases a film a year – which is really otherwise unheard of in the cinematic world. But the last Woody Allen movie to play in a Youngstown theater was Vicky Cristina Barcelona back in 2008. Like all great treasures, you have to hunt his movies down. 

Recently I donned my Indiana Jones fedora and tracked down the latest Woody Allen film: You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger. I had to drive to Cleveland’s Cedar Lee to see it. No problem, it was a great sunny day and I had some great iPod jams for the trip.

As do most directors, Allen has a signature style. It’s back You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, which offers an all-star ensemble cast presenting interwoven stories, moving in and out of each and performing some cool voiceovers. The film explores the human condition by sharing the characters lives and how they cope with them.
In the past, Allen often has used New York City as his movie backdrop. But for the last few films, he has used foreign locations -- such as London and Barcelona. This movie is set in London, where confused, middle-aged Helena, played by Gemma Jones (Harry Potter and Bridget Jones series), visits psychic Cristal, played by Pauline Collins (Paradise Road). Helena wants to know what her life will be like after her husband, Alfie, played by Anthony Hopkins (The Silence of the Lambs and Titus), leaves her.

Next Helena goes to see her daughter, Sally, played Naomi Watts (Mulholland Dr., 21 Grams), who set her mum up with the psychic so she would not harm herself. Sally’s husband, Roy, played by Josh Brolin (W, Milk), is a medical school graduate who became a writer with one successful novel and is struggling with the second.

In the movie, the male characters do stupid things. Alfie tries to regain his youth with a bachelor pad, sports car and tanning. He becomes so lonely that he hires Charmaine, a call girl played by the ever-funny Judy Punch (Dinner For Schmucks), to show that he still has it. Then, he announces that he wants to marry her. Allen shows a younger woman and older man relationship slowly wearing thin.

Roy is attracted to Dia, played by Freida Pinto (Slumdog Millionaire), a woman he sees in a window of the building next his. Later, Roy does something that is totally wrong involving a writer who is in a coma, which in typical Allen style creates an interesting, humorous moment.

Basically, the movie is about people who are not satisfied with what they have.

The cast rounds out with Antonio Banderas (the Shrek series) as Greg, an art dealer who Sally works for and likes.

The acting is top notch; you really believe the characters are going through their trials and tribulations.

There is so much going on in the movie, but you are not confused as you are taken from one emotion to another. I enjoyed the movie, and Allen does a good job of wrapping it up with an understandable but weak conclusion.

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger should be renamed You Will Meet Some Very Strange People.

Edited by Michele Ristich Gatts