Review of You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010) by Steve G — 29 Mar 2011

As a loyal long term Woody Allen fan, it was great to watch a new film from the old master and actually hear a lot of audience laughter for a change. He can get very dark at times, and 'You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger' is ultimately a pessimistic view of human self-deception. But it's also a very funny, sophisticated farce performed by an excellent cast, not including Woody himself â" he prefers to stick to writing and directing these days.

There is one of those cross-generational relationships that often crop up in Allen movies and seem to trouble many of his detractors, but here it's played purely for laughs, and there is no question whatsoever that what we are witnessing is an old man's folly. The old man in question is Alfie Shebritch, fabulously played by Anthony Hopkins, who abandons his wife Helena (Gemma Jones) in order to pursue an obviously doomed relationship with call girl Charmaine (Lucy Punch). This act of male-menopausal madness drives Helena to seek solace from a fortune-teller, Cristal (Pauline Collins), whose predictions are primarily designed to keep her clients coming back for more.

Helena believes every word she hears from the pseudo-psychic, which adds to the problems of her daughter Sally Channing (Naomi Watts) and her husband Roy (Josh Brolin), a troubled writer who finds a drastic solution to his lack of inspiration. The plot depends on some improbable twists of fate, but itâ(TM)s all highly entertaining, and some typically sharp Allen one-liners accompany an accurate attack on silly, shallow New Age 'spiritualism'.