Jun 25 2008
Cassandra’s Dream reviewed
To be completely honest I had a brief love affair with Woody Allen. Films like Sleeper & Bananas made the subtle comedy of his great mid-period films so much greater it was difficult not to fall in love with Allen’s cinema. But as you dig deeper and deeper into his filmography the romance falls away. His comedic brand, which seems so intelligent and cutting at first, but it unravels as you see more of the films. There is a lack of daring, a lack of political edge; it’s so passive and so thin that the love affair ends. That is why it was a great moment when Allen released Match Point, it seemed as though he reinvented himself and it somehow felt as though he had lent some legitimacy to his body of work again. In Cassandra’s Dream I anticipated that same step forward for Allen into a much more psychologically depraved Hitchcock.
In reality I got something else. Critics didn’t exactly pan the film, but their reception was so luke warm that it bared no mention. For the most part it’s an intense, taut thriller that has a certain amount of intelligence to its structure. Its main flaw was that, like much of Allen’s writing, it thought it was cleverer than it was. If the film had really been played as a thriller, straight up, instead of a misguided Shakespearean tragedy with a thriller cloak, it would have been an interesting film. The conclusion wouldn’t have seemed forced. The structure and plot trajectory are crafted in a way that at some point it has become so complex that no conclusion is surprising or satisfying.
To it’s credit it’s a beautifully shot film, with moments of brilliance. Master cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond is still at the top of his game. Every movement of the camera is so loaded with beauty and potential that it enhances the script exponentially. The script is really solid, except that at moments it gets too involved in itself, creating these archaic scenes were the characters become self-reflexive and ponder aloud to the darkness, as though this was Shakespeare. The actors seem to struggle in these moments and the film loses all of its momentum. Though, McGregor and Ferrell give astonishingly good performances. I wasn’t convinced on the casting, but it turns out that given a decent film Colin Ferrell has the ability to act. Who knew?
Cassandra’s Dream is a solid film. It’s not great, but it is a positive addition to the Allen catalogue, and gives more hope yet for Allen’s future as a filmmaker. A new phase that may reinvent the way people look back at his work. Maybe there is even a truly brilliant film in the works from him, something that has been seen in a while from Mr. Allen.
