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Rating: In his best films, Woody Allen has been able to create a very personal form of humor, melancholic, reflective, sophisticated. The comedic and tragic, dramatic components intertwined, becoming shadows of each other, creating very entertaining films, yet at the same time capable of tackling serious themes: in Annie Hall and Manhattan, love and relationship life in New York (a world with its own rules); in Zelig, the relationship of an individual (weak, common) with the masses, and thus, more generally, societal life; in Crimes and Misdemeanors, a film where a more daring approach to "high" material was taken (with references to Dostoevsky and Nietzsche), the transcendence of traditional morality and the affirmation of the self through the imposition of one's own strength (psychological, above all, but also cultural, economic, social).
In these films (and many others), the balance achieved between superficial levity and underlying seriousness was admirable. Even miraculous was, in Crimes and Misdemeanors, the alchemy, the perfect formula that allowed the film to tread both tracks (thanks to great actors like Martin Landau and Allen himself), apparently parallel, but actually converging at a point, that unforgettable finale.
A long preamble is mandatory because for Allen, as has been said for Bergman, there is a strong homogeneity of themes and situations that can be found throughout the entire production, and intertextual references are inevitable. But in Cassandra's Dream there is really nothing of the best Allen, and, it pains to say, not even of the director who (self?) limited himself to getting by (albeit with always dignified films) in the current decade.
That balance, that impeccable equilibrium, no longer succeeds: the ingredients and proportions have changed. Now the serious, the dramatic, is on the surface, barely diluted by a subtle ironic vein, winking and slightly smug (as, for example, in the chance meeting and the dialogue between the two brothers and the future victim). But it is the construction, the dramatic progression that struggles to take off, so much so that the irony also feels almost out of place, in a film that manages to be neither tragic, nor comedic, nor humorous.
It is not disturbing, therefore, not to find anything here of the brilliant Woody Allen; rather, it is disappointing not to find a vivid, serious, credible drama, up to the delicate theme assumed (guilt, the self-determination of morality). In Cassandra's Dream, the intellectual torment, the conflict, the crisis, are only stated, never really represented. While in Crimes and Misdemeanors it was Martin Landau who donned Raskol'nikov's clothes, with excellent results, here there is Colin Farrell, who, not helped by a somewhat sloppy screenplay, fails to give his character (Terry) the depth and "heroism" necessary. Better than him is the brother Ian (Ewan McGregor), cold, confident, detached, heir of Jonhatan Rhys Meyers from Match Point.
Even compared to the 2005 film, this Cassandra's Dream turns out to be much less interesting. There, the strategy of parvenir was more complex, sly, and not just dreamt of and undetermined, as here, and therefore effectively alien to the viewer. The same murder happened, if not surprisingly, almost, as an effective coup de théâtre. Certainly, Match Point too was weighed down by somewhat pretentious didacticism, an easygoing "philosophizing," always an Allen temptation kept at bay. Here, though, when we hear Farrell say "... and if God existed, and..." it's a déjà-vu that's really too faded.
All told, Cassandra's Dream is no more a film for fans than it is a film for anybody else. Apart from the paratextual apparatus, with that eternal white Windsor on a black background, that is always an emotion for the enthusiast; apart from those now classic interior shots, with dialogue between a visible character and another initially off-screen in voice off; apart from one scene in particular, that of the uncle's surprising request, during which the camera, typically not very mobile, draws a circle around the three protagonists, to emphasize the family unity (as in an important scene from Hannah and Her Sisters); apart from all this, then, there isn't much truly Allenian. The same theme of family, seriously addressed in many films, here is practically just a pretext (no one would think that the favor requested by the uncle from the nephews would actually be fulfilled out of family love).
In conclusion, Cassandra's Dream is a film certainly very disappointing for a fan, and probably unsatisfying even for those who are not a fan; let's hope it's just a transitional lowdown, preluding to the next sweets.
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