MOVIE - You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger

I LIKED this, even though it didn't get particularly great reviews....
Released 9-22-10
R (1:38)
10/31/10 (this year's Halloween movie) at Elcon, just me
RT: 48% cag: 86%
Director: Woody Allen

Naomi Watts, Josh Brolin, Antonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins
Two actresses that didn't get top billing and who I think stole the show: Gemma Jones (as the mother, Helena) and Lucy Punch (as Charmaine, the younger woman who married the father).

Talk about intricate personalities in a dysfunctional family! In one of the reviews I read before I went to see this, it said that the reviewer didn't like any of the main characters. Well, I don't think you were really supposed to! They weren't likable people. The mother, Helena, however, really began to grow on me, poor soul, she finally figured out what it was that would make her happy and allow her to continue her life. There were delicious, though predictable, twists and turns, I giggled quite a bit throughout the movie and quite enjoyed it.

One family, mother and father divorced after 40 years because the father (Hopkins) didn't want to get old. The mother, Helena (Jones) bereft. Their only daughter, Sally (Watts) was having plenty of trouble in her own marriage to Ron or Ray (Brolin, who was the weakest/worst actor in the whole ensemble) who is a failed author and peeping Tom. This bold peeping Tom ends up befriending his peepee, played by Frieda Pinto, while his wife lusts after her art gallery owner boss, played by Banderas.

Throughout the in and out, back and forth, first this then that scenarios, Allen weaves light-hearted musical trills and a voice-over explainig a bit about what's gone on. The setting is London, all the characters except for Brolin have British accents (I can't imagine that he'd be able to pull it off).

Good movie, Woody, old boy. Off-beat and funny, my favorite kind!