Woody Allen gives little direction to drowsy 'Cassandra's Dream'

By Claudia Puig, USA TODAY
In his last trio of films —Match Point, Scoop and now Cassandra's Dream—Woody Allen seems hellbent on exploring the darkest human emotions: greed, selfish desire, a disregard for human life and how far one will go in the pursuit of superficial happiness.
We're not asking that he return to the silly-funny turf of his early movies. (He tried that with some success in Scoop.) But he seems so obsessed with making movies about ordinary people getting away with murder that he appears to be stuck in a rut.

It would be tempting to say he's pondering societal issues on a personal scale. Perhaps he is, but Cassandra's Dream is a retread of the much better Match Point.

The film focuses on a pair of working-class London brothers (Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor) struggling for cash and angling for their big break. When their rich uncle (Tom Wilkinson) offers them large sums of money in exchange for murdering a business associate, they reluctantly agree. Wilkinson's character stresses family so often in his entreaty you begin to feel like you're watching a British version of The Sopranos.

The two siblings, inept and inexperienced as they are, get away with the murder.

Then, Farrell, a mechanic and compulsive gambler, is overwhelmed by pangs of conscience and debilitating guilt. The once-affable McGregor struggles with turning on his beloved brother in order to maintain the secrecy of their heinous act.

There is a substantial problem with the film's tone. Allen doesn't seem to know whether he wants this to be a moralistic cautionary tale or a tense melodrama. It certainly isn't a dark comedy, since there are virtually no laughs to be had. His writing is surprisingly flat and wooden, the pacing glacial.

Credit goes to Allen for attempting artistic reinvigoration. By leaving his beloved New York and setting Cassandra'sDream and his previous two films in London, he sets the stage for new ideas. But his knowledge of the working-class milieu seems limited, and the story rings false. What emerges is a film that doesn't have the familiar and longed-for hallmarks of a Woody Allen movie.

Farrell is quite good, though it's hard to buy the Scottish McGregor and the Irish Farrell as brothers. But mostly, the film feels rudderless, almost as if it's been directed on autopilot. Where is Allen's sense of irony and his gift for dialogue? In Scoop, in which he co-starred with Scarlett Johansson, Allen returned to the gentle fun and loopy humor of his early work, and cleverly played off the cultural and class differences between Americans and Brits. In the leaden Cassandra's Dream, he seems to be going through the motions, as if he's aping a lesser director.

It is mystifying: When so many other filmmakers would want to be him, why would Allen try to be someone else?