Though he's made a handful
of good movies over the past 15 years or so—Bullets Over Broadway, Everyone Says I Love
You, and Match
Point
leap immediately to mind—Woody Allen seemed to expend his last burst of
creative energy on 1992's Husbands And Wives, a painful, darkly funny
unpacking of emotional baggage. After that exorcism, plus the bile-expenditure
on the risible Deconstructing Harry, Allen has continued his movie-a-year pace, but
each film has been a trifle, as if he can no longer muster the energy or
creative courage for something deeper and more meaningful. Allen's latest, Cassandra's
Dream, is
better than most, an engaging little British thriller in the Match Point vein about two brothers
who try to take a shortcut to the good life. It also recalls the moral inquiry
of Crimes And Misdemeanors, in which an ophthalmologist orders a hit on his
mistress and wrestles with the spiritual consequences. But the Allen of today
is a husk of his former self, and his apathy and disengagement are painfully
apparent.
After following the
murderous entanglements of London's elite in Match Point, Allen takes an awkward
stab at working-class blokes in Cassandra's Dream, with Ewan McGregor and
Colin Farrell as brothers who seek to shed their modest roots. A mechanic by
day, Farrell gambles every penny (plus some borrowed ones) on card games and
dog races, and goes on enough of a lucky streak to buy a small sailboat. For
his part, McGregor dreams of investing in a prospective resort in California,
but he doesn't have the capital. The two wind up in desperate straits after
Farrell's fortunes turn for the worst, but their wealthy American uncle (Tom
Wilkinson) offers them a way out.
The title refers to the
name of the sailboat, which initially serves as a potent metaphor for the
dangerous fantasy of wealth and entitlement that leads the brothers to
compromise their souls. The early scenes on the boat bear an uncanny
resemblance to Roman Polanski's Knife In The Water, another film about a
life of leisure undercut by tension and violence. But back on shore, Cassandra's
Dream
feels rote and inauthentic; Allen doesn't exactly have Ken Loach's ear for
working-class dialogue (his Cockney family sound conspicuously like Manhattan
bluebloods) and the thriller elements echo Crimes And Misdemeanors closely enough that the
comparison isn't flattering. Like so many late-period Allens, it leaves behind
the feeling that he's made this movie before, but better.