Film review: Cassandra’s Dream
Rating: ** (out of 5)
Review by: Alexa Williamson
Following Match Point, Woody Allen is once again off to ‘do’ a British drama with Cassandra’s Dream. This time it’s the story of two lower middleclass brothers who want to ‘better’ themselves and are tempted to help their uncle, by knocking someone off, to do so.
Focussing on the reaction of each to this request and how they deal with it, Allen is doing his best to put together a ‘Mike Leigh’ slice-of-life film. However, unlike Lee, he can’t pull off the authenticity and poignancy of daily life on, as Bill Bryson would put it, this ‘Small Island’. Instead, what follows is, a poor ‘American’ rendition of British life. Nonetheless, Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell do their best with a boring plotline and lower-than-par ‘Allen script’*.
*Which, up till Scoop (which was released before Match Point), have always been noted for their wit and intellectualism.
Further information:
Cassandra’s Dream (IMDB)
Woody Allen – general information, works, biography (Wikipedia)
Woody Allen’s filmography (IMDB)
