Por Roberto A. Mahmud Gettor.
With a few words, I will try to give my humble opinion about this movie. This is just that: an opinion, and not really a ‘ reseña’ per se, since I would never recommend this. Ever. An important element of mortal sin is consent. Thinking about it, I should spend an extra century in purgatory for throwing away the 20 pesos worst spent in my life watching this movie on its premiere. In those two hours, people died, others were born, Cristina might have talked, and I WAS THERE? Okay, the movie wasn’t that bad ( i.e .: Cloverfield, The Mist, The Happening), but it had a problem, well, one big and senile problem: Woody. Allen.
I’ve never been much of a fan of the new Yorker. In fact, the only movie I found slightly amusing was “Hollywood Ending”. I know many people acclaim “Annie Hall” as the quintessential comedy of the past century. They’re idiots. I don’t get it. I find a movie about a lady dressed up in drag as slightly disturbing.
Despite giving an oath to never watch any movie even related to Woody Allen (despite I did watch his biopic), I was persuaded to watch “Match Point”, purely because of Scarlett Johansson being there (I was single at the time) and the Englishness surrounding the movie. And I loved it. Probably because the guy meets a girl, they cheat on his fiancée. She gets knocked up, and the guy whom she cheats ends up killing the girl, and ends up completely unpunished. Yes, I know I just ruined that movie (anyway, you should watch it).
So I made the mistake of thinking that “this old geezer could be ok”, so I gave “Scoop” a chance. It did have the same combo: the hot blonde from Match Point, the same city as Match Point, and that guy from X-Men pretending to sound English: it was a win-win scenario. I liked the movie, despite it wasn’t as great as Match Point, though. Well, nothing can be as great as Match Point.
For a third time, I decided to have a crack at Mr. Allen with “Cassandra’s Dream”. The story is about the relationship between two English brothers that have Irish and Scottish accents, one’s a gambler, and the other’s a player; they buy a boat. Despite being skint as hell, they get reasonably attractive women (yet they don’t add up to Scarlett Johansson). Then there’s a rich uncle, played by the great Tom Wilkinson, who we never get to see until the end of the movie (an utter waste of talent, it’s almost as painful as seeing John Hurt playing a retard in Indiana Jones 4).
That’s all I could get from the movie. Yes, there is indeed more to it, and it kind of resembles the storyline of Match Point (desperation leading to murder –this time because of family reasons-, one of the characters being overwhelmed by guilt, which leads to madness and then another murder, then suicide), but it is horrible. There was no coherence whatsoever; after the suicide nothing is said about their family or their girlfriends, despite being important plot elements. In fact, the whole idea of “Cassandra’s Dream” (the name of a boat they buy at the beginning of the movie) is dumped until the very end of the movie when the murder/suicide takes place and there is a gratuitously unmeaningful artistic shot of the boat drifting away.
I had to go for a couple of pints to down the sour taste left in my mouth from this movie. Briefly, the experience was god-awful. I hope I can be forgiven for ever consenting to this. Sincerely, the producers could have hired a car to film it, and the movie wouldn’t have sucked half as this.
Oh my god, poor senile grandpa Woody should have definitely retired after Match Point. I still can’t believe how he got to snog Mia Farrow…
Roberto A. Mahmud Gettor
Abogado
sedcontra.com.ar 