THE PLOT THUS FAR
Follows a pair of married couples, Alfie (Hopkins) and Helena (Jones), and their daughter Sally (Watts) and husband Roy (Brolin), as their passions, ambitions, and anxieties lead them into trouble and out of their minds. After Alfie leaves Helena to pursue his lost youth and a free-spirited call girl named Charmaine (Punch), Helena abandons rationality and surrenders her life to the loopy advice of a charlatan fortune teller. Unhappy in her marriage, Sally develops a crush on her handsome art gallery owner boss, Greg (Banderas), while Roy, a novelist nervously awaiting the response to his latest manuscript, becomes moonstruck over Dia (Pinto), a mystery woman who catches his gaze through a nearby window.
WHAT WE THOUGHT
“You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger” tells the superficially wonderful life of an old man, who feels his life slipping away as he grows old. He leaves his wife, causing her to become neurotic, depending on a clairvoyant to sooth her nerves. Their daughter is trapped in an unhappy marriage, while her husband is dying to prove himself that he is still worthy of something. Given such well developed and convincing backgrounds, “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger” can only be a great film on character analysis. There is not a moment of boredom, all the characters are attractive and engaging in their own way.
The way Woody handles this is by a series of conversations in which paradoxes are illustrated by the search for happiness. Freida Pinto’s woman in the window’s remarkably sympathetic with Brolin. Charmaine is a floozy, but not entirely without a heart. The movie is forgiving. But the search for happiness is doomed by definition: You must be happy with what you have, not with what you desire, because the probability of getting it is so fly-by-night. So consider old Jones. She doesn’t meet a tall, dark stranger; she meets a short, stout one, he owns an occult bookshop, and they determine it was meant for them to be together. What more can you ask? The others are all too smart for their own good.
Woody’s virtuosity as a writer prevails in the way he shows the comprehensive array of apprehensive reactions to mortality. At the hub are Hopkins and Jones. Divergence is one manner in which Woody connects his numerous characters: Each portrays a counterpoint to another: Brolin longs to achieve immortality through his work. When he sees the limits in his flair for it that would hinder him from enduring renown, he steals a novel from a dying man. He goes through the whole movie in one outfit: the dreariest auburn you can picture. And he becomes infatuated with the woman who lives diametrically across from him, who appears throughout the movie in the core color that counterpoints dreariness, a passionate red. Both are writers, one academic, one creative; both are discontented with marrying sheep; she’s youthful and en route to prominence, he’s fading from the prominence of his youth. They’re mirror images cast in opposite directions.
The Blu-Ray comes with no special features. Why? Well, I believe it has to do with the fact that Woody Allen is an old man who doesn’t get how the modern world works. I would rather have a commentary from the man now, then having to listen to some talking head discuss his work after he’s died. The A/V Quality boasts a strong 1080p transfer and an adequate DTS-HD discrete master audio track. I haven’t heard such a weird mix in awhile, but it works for the film. I’d recommend a purchase.
RELEASE DATE: 02/15/2011
