who also sings in You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger
Woody Allen is back. In a modest and sweet way. He's brought his ironic, but profoundly romantic, slant back to his film-making in his latest film You Will Meet a Tall, Dark Stranger.
I think true romantics have to be a little ironic and even cynical at heart. The real world is not quite good enough and they have to live on their dosage of sweet romance. Yet, that is what makes the world go round, isn't it? A little bit of fantasy, once in while.
Of course, Allen being the modern romantic that he is, loads us more with the irony than with the romance in his new film. There are many laugh out loud moments, as in the scene when a female character says that she'd rather meet the "stranger" from the tall dark list.
More on the film later. I wonder if Allen is leaving that incestuous relationship of his (replete with newly adopted children) which started with him having an affair with his mistresses' adopted Korean daughter, all in the same roof? His films since his "marriage" to his daughter have been failures. Perhaps his new movie is a result of a clean slate and mind.
One pleasant decision is that Allen refrained from acting in this film, so we are relieved from his incessant pecking around in his irritating voice.
I wrote about Anjelina Jolie's experiments in life, from adopting babies to stealing Brad Pitt from his wife Jennifer Aniston. There were stories that Pitt recently cheated on Jolie. I tend to believe such rumors. Deny, deny is the reaction by adulterers, but many turn out to be true. Jolie's recent film tanked, but I think that has more to do with her lack of talent, combined with her evil life choices, than just her evil life choices distracting her from acting.
And Allen's talent is undeniable. It is good to see him back. And the song he chose for his film is the melodic When You Wish Upon a Star from the Disney animated film Pinocchio. Perhaps Allen is regressing back to some idyllic childhood. But, the sweet song fits the bittersweet irony that permeates throughout the film.
On another note, reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritics have given this film a low average of 46% and 51% receptively. I think it falls in the high 80s. The modern world hates romance, and sweetness. And most likely, irony coupled with romance is just too subtle. It would rather, as I wrote recently, horrifying violence to spark its deadened senses.