Cassandra's Dream Review

by dnb@dca.net (dnb AT dca DOT net)
January 14th, 2008
CASSANDRA'S DREAM
A film review by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 2008 David N. Butterworth

**1/2 (out of ****)

    Apart from the English setting, the preoccupation with sex, class, and murder, and an actress who looks eerily like Scarlet Johansson (or Scarlet Johansson's long lost identical twin sister with a heady London accent), there's not much to tie "Cassandra's Dream" to the latest Woody Allen project (Johansson was in his last two films by the by). The writing is tight and authentic, the neuroticism thankfully downplayed, and the stellar cast is only half-populated by name names. Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell play Ian and Terry, brothers with serious money problems (Ian wants to invest in hotel properties; Terry's a hardened gambler), and Tom Wilkinson plays their rich, successful uncle Howard who offers to bail them out in return for an outrageous favor, but the rest of the players--Hayley Atwell as a bohemian actress, John Benfield and Clare Higgins as the boys' disapproving parents, and the Johansson-esque Sally Hawkins as Terry's bird Kate--aren't exactly household names. That, and perhaps for the first time in recent memory, "Cassandra's Dream" features an actual musical score (by composer Philip Glass), not just a smattering of jazz standards on the soundtrack. As a drama, however, the film is an odd and middling affair (with, I'll grant you, an uncommonly strong performance from Colin Farrell) that, like 2005's "Match Point," is engaging until a crime is committed and then quickly becomes far-fetched. Are we supposed to be charmed, or shocked, by this? Allen doesn't seem sure. "Cassandra's Dream," by the way, is the name of a sailboat Ian and Terry procure at the beginning of the film. In that regard Allen's latest might just as easily have been called "Titanic."

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David N. Butterworth
dnb@dca.net

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