You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger

Woody has his own cinematographic touch including original titles, a soundtrack almost missing and the film beginning in the middle of things in order to the audience to be projected among the characters. Don't be afraid the story alternates between flashbacks and present time. You will not get lost and you will not miss a thing of the plot. In addition, the stories cross over to dynamize the film..

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger is above all the story of Helena (Gemma Jones, always at her best) whose husband divorce her not so long ago. The film begins by her visiting a fortune teller named Cristal. Obviously that woman is a crook, using basic playing cards to see future, telling what Helena wants and needs to hear.

From Helena we will follow as well the lives of her ex husband Alfie (Anthony Hopkins) and of their daughter Sally and her husband Roy (Naomi Watts and Josh Brolin). Alfie wishes for a new youth, her daughter's couple is on the skids due to a lack of money and a lack of pregnancy. To put it another way, Roy is a novelist with a medicine diploma who has sold one best-seller and struggles to complete his latest, leaving aside the want of his wife to become a mother.

There is also a glimpse at Sally's boss Greg's (Antonio Banderas) life who has troubles at home, just like her. No need to mention the sex appeal of this beautiful foreigner and his accent which will put Sally to a severe test as far as her faithfulness is concerned. Roy's faithfulness will also be challenged by his encounter with the red-dressed neighbour Dia (the rising Freida Pinto)

So Helena manages to move on as well as being happy again, thanks to Cristal's guidance. The latter will predict Helena's meeting with a man coined the tall dark stranger..how thrilling. Maybe.

This new born Woody Allen resembles more to a tableau than to a film. Actually there is a feeling of disappointment at the end. The story stops when the audience would have expected some more clues to solve the issues brought forward throughout the film. We have popped in and out of their lives without more information.

All in all, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger is about being strong before the vagaries of life, about how to face them, what your instinct tells you to do. But our dear director is not as his best with this film. Although the plot presents very interesting elements, a feeling of déjà-vu remains. We miss the great philosophical speeches that we were glad to rediscover in Whatever Works.