Cassandra's Dream
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Movie Reviews of Cassandra's Dream
Movie Review: Cassandra's Dream Movie Review
Summary: 3 Stars
After exiting a year thriving on depressingly dark dramas, Woody Allen's newest film Cassandra's Dream can easily be compared to Sydney Lumet's Before the Devil Knows You're Dead and of course Allen's 2005 venture Match Point. Even though the acting is sensational and the constant production of suspense nearly flawless, the storyline is a bit too habitual territory for Allen, and resultantly Cassandra's Dream feels like a film we've all seen before.
Ian (Ewan McGregor) and Terry (Colin Farrell) are brothers from a modest London family who work hard and play hard at a restaurant and a mechanic shop, respectively. Ian is even-tempered and composed, and has high hopes of investing in hotels in California, while Terry lives by the moment and enjoys the risky stakes of gambling on dog races and poker. When Terry gets himself in a financial bind, the two young men turn to their wealthy Uncle Howard (Tom Wilkinson), a millionaire businessman who seldom visits but often looks after the brothers when money is concerned. This time however, Howard is in dire need of Ian and Terry's help - a pesky witness in a detrimental case against Howard's company is in bad need of being silenced. Murder was never something the boys figured themselves capable of, but after Howard's persistence and their desperation for quick funds, the two contemplate committing the dastardly crime.
Opening with the perfect murder music by composer Philip Glass, Cassandra's Dream carefully sets up the development of Ian and Terry and their stable but careless lives, and builds up tension as details fall into place. After the introduction of Howard's dilemma, the suspense becomes nerve-wracking and wonderfully paced, mixing in Hitchcockian surprises and guilt-laden twists. Despite the slow yet intriguing setup, the conclusion may leave many viewers decidedly disappointed.
The acting stands out above the progression of the story as Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell appear purposefully cast against their usual character types. Ewan is collected and plotting, while Farrell marvelously portrays the brother that succumbs to self destructive guilt. Tom Wilkinson also delivers a superb supporting performance as a man with a discordant aura of noblesse oblige that coerces the once reasoning brothers into attempting an act they would otherwise be unable to do. If it weren't for the engrossingly outstanding performances by the entire ensemble, Cassandra's Dream would barely be able to surface from the sea of other similarly bleak films submerged in downward spiraling, despondent protagonists.
Beautifully cynical dialogue encourages many laughs toward the unpredictable denouement, and a thick fog of foreshadowing lingers around most of the striking words. "You won't be sorry," pressures Howard, and "Ain't life grand," quote the brothers from Bonnie and Clyde, a film that mirrors tragic consequences. Allen seems to say that the guilt of men fuels just as many bad decisions as greed and desperation, and Cassandra's Dream becomes a tense waiting game of actions and consequences.
Great acting and very solid direction still aren't able to dissuade the tone, mood and overall feel of the film from being too familiar. While the story demonstrates an inventive twist on a classic formula, it somehow feels like we've seen it all before, and with Woody Allen's continuous explorations of different genres and characters, it's a shame that Cassandra's Dream is more Match Point than Scoop.
- Mike Massie
Movie Review: Allen Not Up to Par with a Noirish Parable About Desperate Brothers
Summary: 3 Stars
There's an oddly pinched tone to Woody Allen's 2007 noirish morality tale about the evil men are willing to do for the elusive things they can't have. Still in exile in London for his third film in a row across the pond, Allen has made a film that is recognizably his own even although he is nowhere to be seen this time. You can tell by the clean cinematography courtesy of Vilmos Zsigmond (Close Encounters of the Third Kind), the dialogue-rich scenes, and the parable-like way the story unfolds as if it was a contemporary take on a classic Greek tragedy. In this respect, the film immediately recalls Allen's 2005 Match Point, but this time, the moralistic perspective clamps down the dramatic angle as the narrative takes a well-trodden path. The title refers to a small sailboat much sought after by two working-class brothers. On the surface, older brother Ian is the prototypical good son who works at his father's struggling restaurant out of familial devotion.
Younger brother Ian, however, has an addictive personality - whether it's gambling, alcohol or pills - that makes him the object of ridicule and scorn by his parents. We soon discover that both are really the opposite of what they appear. By casting Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell as Ian and Terry, Allen appears to be switching the roles one would associate with the actors' screen personas. The usually gallant McGregor plays the cool Machiavellian one, while the cocksure Farrell is the naïve, guilt-ridden one. Thanks to Terry's lucky betting streak, the brothers get the boat and quickly get in over their heads. Ian needs funding in order to invest in a chain of high-end hotels in California, while Terry racks up insurmountable gambling debts. Just in time, the family success, their well-heeled Uncle Howard shows up, and the brothers waste little time in asking him for money since Howard has been helping their parents for years. The central plot twist comes as Howard is willing to help the boys upon the condition that they kill a colleague that could destroy him in the midst of a pending investigation into his clinic business.
How the plot evolves is pretty standard, and Allen appears to have trouble keeping it all reasonably suspenseful. The problem is that Terry's emotional breakdown is dragged out amid the contrived plot twists until the somewhat ironic ending. While Tom Wilkinson is dependably compelling in his few scenes as Uncle Howard, the rest of the performances are variable in quality. McGregor captures the ambition of his character, but he is not nearly as convincing when Ian's desperation turns malevolent. Farrell is comparatively more surprising as Terry as he shows his character's budding conscience with conviction. It's too bad Allen's screenplay lets him fester in his guilt for so long. Newcomer Hayley Atwell lacks the range to play Ian's actress girlfriend Angela as anything more than a spoiled beauty. Sally Hawkins is better as Terry's effusive, concerned girlfriend Kate, but she is given little screen time. This is not Allen's finest hour, not by a long shot, but this film still has worthwhile moments. Like most video transfers of Allen's film, the 2008 DVD offers no extras.
Movie Review: A 3.5, maybe...
Summary: 3 Stars
One might wonder why Woody Allen has become so fascinated with setting his modern-day morality plays in England, rather than the US. Perhaps it is the enduring illusion of innocence or nobility that British accents still hold for we Americans: watching Ewan McGregor wrestle with the decision to commit murder is more unsettling than the moral struggles of Alan Alda in earlier Allen flicks, because Ewan has that cute little accent. Of course, human nature is human nature, and an accent won't serve as a get out of jail free card -- it'll just throw the audience off balance for a little while.
On the face of it, Allen's 2007 film, "Cassandra's Dream," is very much like "Match Point from a couple of years earlier. In it, a handsome young Londoner wrestles with the decision to murder someone after realizing the the murder will (apparently) grant him his every desire. The struggle is primal and Biblical, and the audience gets queasy at the sight of such an elemental wrong being played out, methodically, under our very eyes. However, "Match Point" was a more skillful and alluring film -- although there are some differences, "Cassandra" feels very much like an alternate draft of the same story, or even a workshop for the earlier film. Apparently, cold-blooded homicide (this time with a Cockney accent) is a theme that Woody Allen is not quite ready to let go of, even if his audience may feel that they have already traveled down this road before.
Ewan McGregor and co-star Colin Farrell turn in fine performances, with an able supporting cast, but still this morality play may have trouble connecting. Allen loyalists might enjoy seeing him direct another strong crime genre work, however, since it is interesting to see something that feels so completely un-Woody Allen-like, even if it does feel a bit redundant. (Joe Sixpack, Slipcue film reviews)
Movie Review: Leopold and Loeb redux
Summary: 3 Stars
***1/2
Whenever he turns to drama, Woody Allen always seems to wind up
channeling either Ingmar Bergman ("Interiors," "September") or Fyodor
Dostoevsky ("Crimes and Misdemeanors," "Match Point"). "Cassandra's
Dream" finds him in one of his Dostoevsky moods (with traces of
Hitchcock thrown in for good measure), once again making the case that it is
both impossibly difficult and ridiculously easy for the common man to
engage in cold-blooded murder.
Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor star as two working-class brothers who
have fallen onto financial hard times (one is a compulsive gambler, the
other a frustrated cipher with dreams of rising above his station both
economically and romantically). Desperate for some immediate cash, they
reluctantly agree to knock off one of their wealthy uncle's business
rivals who has some secret knowledge that, if it ever got out, could
send the old man up the river for a very long time.
Set in London, "Cassandra's Dream" is not as sharp and cutting as some
of Allen's previous works in this genre, but thanks to strong
performances by Farrell, McGregor and Tom Wilkinson as the uncle, this
latest update of the Loepold-and-Loeb story manages to keep our
interest most of the way. The themes, which have been played out in
literature and movies for what seems like eons now, understandably feel
a trifle old-hat at this late stage in the game, but Allen's generally sharp dialogue,
canny insights into human nature, and smooth direction help to freshen
them up a bit.
It may not be Allen at his finest, but the ancillary rewards of script and acting make the
film well worth seeing.
Movie Review: Woody Fans: Better than Scoop; Not Quite Match Point
Summary: 3 Stars
It's London...there's murder in the air and it's Woody Allen!
Cassandra's Dream features a nice pairing of Ewan Macgregor and Colin Farrell (Who doesn't want to act with Woody?) but the Master himself is average on this outing. His London trilogy which started out brilliantly with Match Point and degenerated with Scoop ends here with Cassandra's Dream, which averages out the two.
The movie unfolds like a play, much like Scoop, and from the start, you feel that both our leads feel like (gasp) actors. The self conscious nuances that Woody brings to his characters sometimes creates a sharp contrast from the flat, ordinary style of filming. There's nothing fancy in terms of Woody's camerawork (often times, it felt like watching an older BBC tv drama) and he relies completely on the actors and the script to drive the story.
The story of two brothers and confidantes and their inevitable moral dilemma of how to pursue a better destiny echoes Match Point, so much so that you wonder why Woody is revisiting the same riff. Cassandra's Dream could well play on stage - I imagine somehow that Woody was inspired by visiting the theatre in the West End when he conceived this.
Collin Farrell provides the more interesting and tortured character, but somehow the usual ironies and humour of Allen's wit are missing in Cassandra's Dream and in the end we get a not quite thriller / drama, devoid of the usual quirks we've come to love of this director.
Certainly watchable but those interested in this vein of Woody may want to check out Crimes and Misdemeanours or even Manhatten Murder Mystery. Or simply fast forward to Vicky Christina Barcelona.