You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010)
Starring Antonio Banderas, Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins, Gemma Jones, Freida Pinto, Lucy Punch, and Naomi Watts
Directed by Woody Allen
Woody Allen keeps churning out the movies at a rate of about one a year. Maybe if he took a tad more time between flicks, he'd come up with an actual plot because in You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, the lack of any story and any comedy (and this certainly attempts to fall into Allen's comedy genre as opposed to his dramatic undertakings) makes this film flounder about aimlessly without ever going anywhere.
I guess I'm fibbing a bit when I say there's no story...there's just not a story here that anyone would find moderately interesting. There's an older couple (Anthony Hopkins and Gemma Jones) who are recently divorced -- the husband finds himself a younger woman (Lucy Punch) who happens to be a prostitute, while the wife mopes around depressed. They have a daughter (Naomi Watts) who's in a loveless marriage with her struggling writer husband (Josh Brolin) who has fallen head over heels for the exotic guitar player (Freida Pinto) who lives across the street. There's not a doubt that these relationships were supposed to be played for a bit of laughs, but, with the exception of Lucy Punch (whose over-the-top hooker doesn't fit in at all with the rest of the character landscape of the flick but at least supplies the film's few moments of humor), there's nary a chortle to be had here.
I can take or leave Woody Allen's films (and I'd mostly leave them), but I keep watching his newer ventures (without delving into many of his earlier, more well regarded works for some reason) realizing that every now and then there's a diamond in the rough (example). Not here. It seems like the actors were well aware of this drab script because (with the exception of the previously mentioned Lucy Punch) none of them brought their A-game...although Allen certainly didn't bring his best to the table here either.
I can take or leave Woody Allen's films (and I'd mostly leave them), but I keep watching his newer ventures (without delving into many of his earlier, more well regarded works for some reason) realizing that every now and then there's a diamond in the rough (example). Not here. It seems like the actors were well aware of this drab script because (with the exception of the previously mentioned Lucy Punch) none of them brought their A-game...although Allen certainly didn't bring his best to the table here either.
The RyMickey Rating: D+
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