Movie Notes: Cassandra’s Dream

August 17th, 2009

= 2 stars

Starring Ewan McGregor, Colin Farrell, Sally Hawkins
Directed by Woody Allen

Synopsis

London brothers Ian (Ewan McGregor) and Terry (Colin Farrell) buy a sailboat and name it Cassandra’s Dream. Both hope to escape their working-class roots. Terry is buried by gambling debts and they decide to perform an unsavory job for their wealthy uncle Howard.

The Good

• Relaxed, glossy look plus an undulating, tense score by Phillip Glass.
• McGregor and Farrell — the latter looking quite at peace playing an average guy — do the best they can with the material.
• Has a point regarding the downside of class aspiration. Allen suggests people should strive to be happy with their station in life. This theme previously appeared in Small Time Crooks and Alice.

The Bad

• A tale of two brothers performing unspeakable acts and dealing with moral questions was much better handled in Crimes And Misdemeanors. I never got the sense that Terry was truly conflicted, and Ian seemed a bit too aloof to take seriously as criminal.
• Things soon become much too obvious once one knows the morality Allen is advocating, and the ending is almost laughably too neat and tidy. It’s soon clear that the “bad” guys will bring about their destruction — as opposed to Crimes And Misdemeanors and Match Point where the shock was in the absence of justice. This feels like a morality play and with the emphasis on play as opposed to real life.

Conclusion

Didn’t care for this one. It personally felt like a rehash of Crimes And Misdemeanors, and suffers in inevitable comparison to the superior Match Point.

Next Woody Allen Movie: Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Previous Woody Allen Movie: Anything Else

IMDB: Cassandra’s Dream
Wikipedia: Cassandra’s Dream
Rotten Tomatoes: Cassandra’s Dream