Review of Cassandra's Dream (2007) by Chads. — 03 Feb 2008

"Cassandra's Dream" may be set in England, but some of its characters, you could argue, have a New York-state-of-mind. Just like people who say they were born into the wrong family; Ian(Ewan McGregor) and Angela(Hayley Atwell) strike me as sophisticates who somehow ended up in a Mike Leigh film.

Even though Ian and Angela belong to the same working class as Terry(Colin Farrell) and Kate(Sally Hawkins), they're just conspicuously better looking, and more refined than Ian's brother and girlfriend.

Like many New Yorkers, the handsome couple are planning a move to California. Even though "Cassandra's Dream" seems to mark a departure from this filmmaker's fascination with the middle-upper class, he's far from being a humane filmmaker like Leigh, or Ken Loach.

Although Ian is comparatively amoral when sized-up against his tortured brother, he one-ups Terry when push comes to shove, because the favorite son has so much more at stake. Ian, to my utter disbelief, ends up being more altruistic than Terry.

Ian's actions goes against the grain of the film's rhetoric, which convinces us that Terry needs to be dealt with by any means necessary. Because rhetoric in the filmic world differs from its real-life counterpart.

Since nobody can get hurt from a vicarious thrill, we engage our loyalties with people from the wrong side of the law, and root for their clean getaway. Ian & Terry are no different than, say, Bonnie & Clyde, but with a difference.

The brothers, unlike the fugitive lovers from the 1967 Arthur Penn film, have a caste system in place. They're not treated as equals. "Cassandra's Dream", inadvertently, says a lot about this filmmaker, whom we've always suspected was filled with contempt for the proletariat.

Ian's redemption at the end of "Cassandra's Dream" is proof of an inherent Manhattan haughtiness that puts a damper, but doesn't quite cancel out the film's many strengths.

But make no mistake, there is a class-warfare subtext at play here.