Author: Jack Greenbaum
Woody Allen has always been preoccupied with death. Thirty years ago he quipped, “I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work, I want to achieve it by not dying.” Recently, at the Cannes Film Festival, he reaffirmed this notion, stating, “I find it a lousy deal. There’s no advantage in getting older. I’m 74 now. You don’t get smarter, you don’t get wiser, you don’t get more mellow, you don’t get more kindly. Nothing good happens. Your back hurts more. You get more indigestion. Your eyesight isn’t as good. You need a hearing aid. It’s a bad business getting older, and I would advise you not to do it.” Age may not bring wisdom, but it does bring experience.
So in his 42nd film, “You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger,” Allen mulls over old age and death along with infidelity, chicanery, belief and psychics. Anthony Hopkins plays the role of Alfie, a septuagenarian preoccupied with his mortality. Hopkins’ character suddenly decides to challenge his expiration through exercise, night-clubbing and even leaving his wife Helena (Gemma Jones) for a younger woman (Lucy Punch). Some might find Alfie’s characteristics reflective of Allen’s own persona, and although there is much that could be disputed about this, it seems as if Hopkins agrees with the notion. He plays his role with additional neurosis, more akin with the filmmaker’s own character. In this way, Alfie seems somewhat out of place as a wealthy, English gentleman with all his inexplicable idiosyncrasies.
While Hopkins’ Alfie denies his inevitable fate, his ex-wife Helena grapples with the abandonment of her husband through her own form of coping: a psychic. Cristal (Pauline Collins), the soothsayer, is more than happy to indulge Helena in her search for solace by “revealing” an optimistic future to her, including the eponymous “tall, dark stranger,” for a nominal fee, of course. Her moment of ignorant bliss illustrates the film’s theme of the happiness that can be achieved by simply giving in to fallacy.
Helena’s clairvoyant beliefs juxtapose nicely with her daughter’s and son-in-law’s quandaries. Sally (Naomi Watts) and Roy (Josh Brolin) mock Helena’s newfound paranormal conviction, despite each couple looking for some sort of indulgence to distract them from their failing marriages. Sally takes to managing a gallery and fantasizing about the possibility of finding romance with her boss (Antonio Banderas). Roy spends his days courting the across-the-way neighbor (Freida Pinto) and toiling with another drab novel.
Neither of these story lines is particularly enthralling because none of the characters earn much empathy; they seem superficial and tedious as they spend their days prating about their bourgeois problems. The only reason they maintain the audience’s focus is out of curiosity for the characters’ decisions and the consequences that result.
The narrator (Zak Orth) deserves the most merit for bringing together these stories with an amusing and meditative question: Is it better to yield to delusion of hope to sustain oneself through life, or to accept this meaningless existence and do one’s best to not be depressed and miserable? It’s never too early to start pondering this query, although Woody’s done it better in some of his previous films, including “Annie Hall,” “Hannah & Her Sisters” and “Love & Death.”
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