Review of You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010) by Dasen P — 19 Feb 2011

Woody Allen is a committed atheist. We see this in his stand-up, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Deconstructing Harry, and Match Point. What is more, one of the funniest lines in Husbands and Wives is spoken by Jack's ditsy arm ornament, "why wouldn't the position of the planets have an influence on our personalities?" But his latest work, Whatever Works and You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, both seem to affirm a fate-based character in ways that problematize Allen's commitment to a chaotic worldview. It started in Match Point, in which the deus ex machina worked because of luck, but in Whatever Works a diviner lets Larry David fall on her because it's implied that she knows the collision will blossom into a successful relationship. Here, Helena visits a diviner, and throughout the film, we're waiting for her trust to be misplaced, but the conclusion avoids predictability, no matter if you're an Allen fan or simply familiar with film cliches. At first look, we might be compelled to think that our diminutive, clever atheist has "seen the light" as he enters the final quarter of a century, but there's a line that runs through the entire film, serving as its backbone and making this one of Allen's most cynical efforts: "Sometimes illusions work better than real medicine." Thus, we're invited to laugh at and ridicule all of these characters, no matter how life turns out for them. In the end, it doesn't matter whether the diviner's predictions come true because everyone in this film is equally foolish in part because of their insistence to predict the unpredictable, and they equally doomed to a life "full of sound and fury but signifying nothing.".

I've said this often, but I think it's time to write it: one day, probably in my lifetime, Woody Allen will be dead. And even films like this, which was critically panned, are going to serve as reminders of this film auteur. I, for one, am going to miss characters who read and know about art, literature, and opera. I'm going to miss stories that are goofy but seem to point out the ridiculousness of life. I'm going to miss Woody Allen. A lot.