Woody Allen's latest is Cassandra's Dream. It follows the fate the two sons of a struggling restaurant owner. Terry (played wonderfully by Colin Ferrell) is the gambling addicted auto mechanic with a loving wife. Ian (Ewan McGregor), meanwhile, works at his father's restaurant, but wants to make his mark elsewhere.
Terry gets into some financial trouble, if you call losing 90,000£ "trouble". Ian, who is trying to woo beautiful up-and-coming actress Angela Stark (Hayley Atwell), wants to become fabulous wealthy investing money in a sure-fire hotel project in California. What can they do? Turn to their wealthy uncle Howard (great supporting role for Tom Wilkinson), of course. But here's where the movie really gets started: Howard needs a favor in return. The rest of the movie follows the brothers' moral struggle with said favor and related repercussions.
There is a certain "flatness" to the movie I can't quite place, a sort of matter-of-fact storytelling that I don't quite know how to explain. But it has a very similar feel to Allen's most recent crime drama, Match Point, with a starkly different outcome. He seems to enjoy stories of English commoners struggling to elevate their social standing.
While I'll admit that Allen skillfully maintains suspense throughout the movie, the ending could use a little work. But, I think he enjoys that "this the end folks --sorry" sort of feel. And it took a screening of Mad Detective (review coming later today) to pull me out of the funk I was in after the screening. My imdb rating: 7/10.
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I find the matching of Colin Farrell and Woody Allen to be a little interesting. I keep picturing him as Bullseye in Daredevil stuck in one of Woody's strange manic movies.
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