If comedy is people we like doing stupid things, and tragedy is people we like doing horrible things, then Woody Allen's latter-day tragedies have mined an oddly compelling combination of the two: people we like doing stupid, horrible things. Your tolerance for such behavior will most likely determine your tolerance for Allen's latest, Cassandra's Dream, an absurdist distillation of his earlier Match Point. But love it or hate it, Allen has crafted something unique.
Evoking Sidney Lumet's recent Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Dream follows two brothers in desperate need of money. One is a slick, ambitious wannabe businessman (Ewan McGregor), the other a dim down-and-outer with a gambling problem (Colin Farrell). Because their middle-class parents are unable to help, the brothers turn to their Uncle Howard (Tom Wilkinson), a successful international businessman who's always been happy to aid his kin. This time, after generously agreeing to give the kids the dough they need, cuddly Uncle Howard turns around and asks for a favor of his own. It's a doozy: turns out his business isn't exactly on the straight and narrow, and he needs a whistleblower rubbed out. The brothers fret about it before agreeing, reluctantly, to the hit. Things don't go as planned.
Sound ridiculous? It is. Cassandra's Dream is not a realistic film, but it's not trying to be. The title and the plot evoke Greek drama, but it's an evocation colored by Allen's fondness for the absurd, and the film hovers between comedy and tragedy throughout. This can be a recipe for disaster — and some of Cassandra 's advance press from the festival circuit has not been kind — but even in the twilight of his career, Allen remains a master of tone. Events turn on a dime, a chance meeting leads immediately to full-fledged passion, and much of the story takes place as if in a dream: Farrell's gambling wins and losses are often kept deliberately offscreen, for example, so that we never know if he's telling the truth about his adventures. We're never sure of what's happening, or what will happen next. This sense of unease and paranoia eventually takes over entirely, resulting in one of the director's most cynical films to date. But his accomplishment here isn't the darkness of the story. It's the otherworldly universe against which it plays out. — Bilge Ebiri
