Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

Teringer An Exercise In Nonsense

Brendon Jones It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

bela If you've never seen any of Woody Allen's movies, make sure you don't choose this turkey as your introduction to his otherwise wonderful oeuvre. The plot is a cliché taken straight out of a daytime soapie and despite a seemingly excellent leading cast, the acting is beyond wooden. Colin Farrell is reported as saying this movie took him more takes than Miami Vice. Pity they didn't take a lot more or better still, take none at all and start over. Abysmal.

ao590 So I've been on a binge of less than amazing Woody Allen films in the past few days. You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, Scoop and finally Cassandra's Dream. All set in London, they all suffer from essentially the same issues, but I'll focus on the last one here.The single biggest problem here is Woody Allen's most unique feature; his incredible speed. Reading the book 'Conversations with Woody Allen' confirms that most of these films were written in a rush based on a selection of single ideas, I think Cassandra's Dream in particular was written in 8-10 weeks or something. Which, of course, is incredibly impressive, but also painfully obvious after watching the film. Woody Allen is an ideas man; Cassandra's Dream is full of fantastic thoughts, plot details and nuances, but the problem is that hardly any of them are properly developed! The storyline is simply all over the place, there's so much information squeezed into this 108 minutes that you would think there wasn't a dull moment. Yet the first 20-30 establishing minutes are the furthest thing from captivating. We meet the two brothers, one too ambitious for his own good, the other a gambling addict, existing in a sort of idyllic pre-Event (in the psychoanalytical sense) bliss. But why waste so much of the film on this when we're dealing with archetypes anyway? There's so much superfluous information that adds nothing to the story that I honestly wish Allen would decrease his rate of productivity and spend more time in the writing process. Take for example the boat; a criminally under-utilised plot-detail that I would wager was kept in the script mainly for the title's sake. Then there's the story of Ian (to me, an awfully artificial Ewen McGregor) meeting his girlfriend while out on a country drive with a previous girl; again, adds nothing to the story and could've easily been hinted at without wasting screen-time. Or the backdrop of the struggling family restaurant business; I suspect this was meant to heighten the pressure on our characters, but Ian keeps repeating he doesn't care about it and his father seems understanding over his long-term plan of abandoning it; so why complicate the plot with it in the first place?Overall, all three films feel more like plays than movies; every set could've been represented on stage easily. In fact this was something I was constantly conscious of during the film, which suggests to me that it really would be a more natural fit. Unfortunately, this being a film, the character's insistence to verbalise emotions that should honestly be beyond their scope often completely shatters the illusion. Speaking of illusion, I haven't even talked about the choice of words / accents yet (I'm not a stickler for such a thing, but I have to mention Collin Farrell slips up on the accent once in an almost comical way in a supposedly dramatic scene. Then there's the 1950s vocabulary of the apparently 20 year old girl played by Scarlet Johansson in Scoop).Overall, not a great effort. I would be more understanding if I thought Allen didn't care, but it's clear he was very proud of Match Point, so I wonder why he would not invest the time into perfecting these otherwise promising scripts. The ideas are there; it's the polish that's missing.

runamokprods This is the third time Allen has made a drama dealing with the moral insanity surrounding the possibility of murder. The first - "Crimes and Misdemeanors" - is one of his very greatest films. "Match Point" made only two years before "Cassandra's Dream" was strong, if not as complex and gut-punching as "Crimes…". While critics liked this film by far the least of the three, I feel this can certainly stand at least on equal footing with "Match Point". I will concede that the conclusion is slightly underwhelming and feels rushed. But the strong performances by Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell (who arguably does his best work ever here) as brothers in various financial need -- whose rich uncle will bail out if they kill someone -- make the film upsetting (in the good way) and tense. Indeed there are some terrific Hitchcockian moments in the film. Allen breaks with his normal style in interesting ways. Instead of only using source music, Philip Glass contributes a powerful and effective score. And the camera-work by Vilmos Zisgmond uses different kind of camera movement than I usually associate with Allen, including a sort of 'creeping camera' that helps to heighten the tension in a number of scenes. Make no mistake, this is more moral drama than thriller, and those expecting a thriller's pace will be frustrated. But whatever its flaws, it's an intelligent, well acted attempt to come to grips with moral responsibility in a world where money rules all.

PopCulturedwithMovieMike When Cassandra's Dream was first released, I remember it getting mixed reviews so I kind of steered clear of it. My mom saw it On Demand and told me to watch it because she knows what kind of films I like and the plot for Cassandra's Dream is right up my alley. I'm a sucker for films like Before the Devil Knows You're Dead and A Simple Plan. Two films that deal with themes that I'm really interested in: family and money. More importantly, what people will do for money. I find it fascinating to take a relatively good person and mix in money and watch them make awful choices, and in doing so, watch their lives spin out of control. Cassandra's Dream isn't quite as good as those films, but it might be a little better than people give it credit for. I know a lot of people give the film a hard time because of the accents, but I don't care about that. My biggest problem with the film is that it takes a long time to really get into the heart of the story. A film like this needs a nice, tense build up, but it has to happen fast. Instead, the beginning kind of lingers, and the last act of the film seems rushed. The film also has an annoying habit of skipping over the the biggest part of some of the scenes. Leaving the viewer to picture what happened on his own. I've never been a big fan of Woody Allen, so I might be off, but I think in different hands this could have been a really good film. There's nothing worse than a film that could have been really good settling in at just good. That's basically what happens with Cassandra's Dream. It could have been really good, but it's still a little better than some might think.