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Product Description
Studio: Genius Products Inc Release Date: 09/30/2008 Rating: Pg13

Amazon.com
Scottish Ewan McGregor and Irish Colin Farrell play two Cockney brothers who get in over their heads when a wealthy relative asks for a favor. Woody Allen's sleek thriller Cassandra's Dream begins in innocent times: Ian (McGregor) and Terry (Farrell) buy a sailboat and name it Cassandra's Dream. But soon Terry falls afoul of gambling debts and Ian falls head over heels for a sultry actress who doesn't take him seriously, leading them to ask their uncle Howard (Tom Wilkinson) for money, which he's happy to give them--if they'll get rid of a man who's going to testify against him. The first half of Cassandra's Dream zips along with short, concise scenes and charismatic performances by the lead lads. Newcomer Hayley Atwell (Brideshead Revisited) is alluring as the actress, while Sally Hawkins (Persuasion) brings warmth and sympathy to the underwritten role of Terry's girlfriend Kate. The second half--as with many of Allen's later films--seems to run out of steam, though there's still much to admire about Allen's clean, unfussy filmmaking. Regrettably, he seems to have lost the ability to sustain his imaginative spark. The weakness is in the writing; too many of the characters are barely sketched and clumsy lines of dialogue jar the ear in otherwise well-shaped scenes. But just when you're ready to throw up your hands, there's a moment of understated grace, in which Allen's simple visuals capture something with crystalline clarity. Cassandra's Dream is a frustrating movie, but it has its rewards. --Bret Fetzer

Customer Reviews: Read 23 more reviews...

4 out of 5 stars

London Murder Mystery January 20, 2008
24 out of 27 found this review helpful

The critics seem to enjoy beating up Woody Allen. "Cassandra's Dream" follows in the trend of the last 15 or so years of the public and critics turning their back on Allen and his films. I've found that they sometimes take cheap shots. It's one thing not to like an Allen film, but often I read personal attacks against Allen the man. Remarks are made concerning his age, personal life and his relationship with Soon-Yi. Rarely do critics stick to comments concerning editing, cinematography or acting without inserting a jab at Allen.

Every review I've come across for this film has been negative. "Variety" did not like it, spending a majority of the review complaining about the characters accents and the language used in the film, citing it is not authentic if you are British. Roger Ebert did not like it nor did the Chicago Tribune while the New York Times seemed luke-warm to it.

Once again however I find myself on the outside of public opinion. "Cassandra's Dream" is one of 2007's best films. Many may want to compare it to Allen's "Match Point", Allen's other film set in London revolving around murder and social class. Don't! The films are very different. "Match Point" I felt used metaphor in a more superior way. I thought Allen did a better job expressing his views on society in that film, but, "Cassandra's Dream" should not go without its due praise.

The film follows two lower class brothers, Ian (Ewan McGregor) and Terry (Colin Farrell) trying to get by and climb the social ladder to success. Terry has a bit of a drinking and gambling problem. For now the gambling is paying off. Winning small amounts at cards and betting on the dog track. Ian on the other hand works at the family restuarant but dreams of investing in hotels. In many ways he wants to be like his rich uncle Howard (Tom Wilkinson), who has travelled all over the world.

One day Terry's luck runs out, he losses big at a poker game and is 90 thousand pounds in debt. Where will he get the money? Ian has some money saved for his hotel investments but not 90 thousand pounds. Their only hope is their rich uncle.

Before their uncle will give them the money he has a favor to ask. There is a whistle-blower at Howard's company who is going to testify against him for some questionable business moves he made. Howard needs the man to be, shall we say, eliminated. And he can only turn to his family for such a request.

At the heart of Allen's film is what lies in men's souls. Are good people capable of bad things. The brothers may have their faults, but they are not criminals. The tagline line for the film is every dream has a price. It's key to the film. How far would you go to reach your dreams? How severely will we allow our moral judgement to punish us for "sinful" acts?

We saw this question present itself in Allen's "Match Point" and "Crimes and Misdemeanors" (which also had brothers planning a murder. In fact the original title for the film was "Brothers") .

McGregor is good in the film as his character I felt was better defined and goes through more of a transformation. Farrell is the weak link of the bunch. His character seems underdeveloped. In honesty both characters could have used more work but McGregor adds something to the character through his presence as an actor. He makes the part more interesting then it was written. Farrell keeps his performance at the page level. Meaning he doesn't flesh the character out to make it his own but instead simply sticks to the page.

The major acting find here is Hayley Atwell. She is a treasure playing Angela Stark, a love interest for Ian. She is an unknown actress who has the potential to be a star. Unfortunately Allen and his legendary Hungarian cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, whose credits include "The Long Goodbye", "The Deer Hunter", "Blow Out" and Allen's "Melinda and Melinda" don't linger on Atwell. Allen should have had the camera follow her more aggressively, making the camera and the viewer fall in love with her. But that may have changed the tone of the film.

Zsigmond though for his part does get some beautiful country side shots as Allen shows as a different side of London than what we saw in "Scoop" and "Match Point". We see a more gritty side of London.

The editing of the film I also found effective. It slowly builds tension. As I first began watching the film I thought to myself this is a "good" Allen film. Then I slowly became more and mroe involved. How would the murder happen? Would they do it? Will they get away with it? How will such a film end? The film really grabbed my attention. My eyes became glued to the screen.

Sure there are downsides to the film, some of the performances, I thought more could have been done with Atwell and I found the original score by Philip Glass, at times unsuccessful in creating the proper mood. I didn't think it added much to the film. I thought the best scenes were the ones without any music. But "Cassandra's Dream" is worth seeing. Yes the negative remarks will continue, but for me at least, I'm glad I saw this film.

Bottom-line: One of 2007's best films. Despite some flaws Allen manages to keep his audience engaged. The film slowly creeps up on you.

3 out of 5 stars

A Scotsman and an Irishman need to borrow some money .... March 2, 2008
15 out of 23 found this review helpful

Although the title of this review sounds like the intro to a joke, there's no point waiting around for a punch line, because this movie is billed as a suspense movie, and it's really more like a dark drama.

Farrell (the Irishman) and McGregor (the Scot) play British brothers with a love of gambling (Farrell), fast cars (both) and hot women (McGregor), but not necessarily in that order. When their luck starts drying up, the brothers seek out good old Uncle Howard, who's usually good for a few quid, and soon learn that payback's a beyotch.

With its dark themes and unlikeable characters, the only thing to make this worth watching is the passion with which the actors approach their roles.

Short Attention Span Summary (SASS)

1.Dark
2.Depressing
3.Darn fine acting

Amanda Richards, March 1, 2008

5 out of 5 stars

The love and game: the strings of life! May 24, 2008
7 out of 9 found this review helpful

Since the times of "Mighty Aphrodite" the genial Woody Allen seems to have found a never ending vein of possibilities, blending the essential roots of the Greek tragedy with the classic patterns of the Noir Film.

As a matter of fact, if "Match Point" was one of his most supreme achievements until this date, "Cassandra ` s dream" is the perfect vehicle to carve in relief the existential anguish and the primary scream for two working class brothers who aspire to escape from his quotidian environment.

Every one of them wants to be recognized and admired, playing the game of a wealthy uncle, who is for their mother, the symbol of success, and the real support along his years of childhood and youth.

So, we have the greedy mother, the ruthless uncle who is a real wolf of the finances and regards the existence like a poker game. "Family is family and blood and blood" is his honour` s code, the fatal statement which will open the Pandora's box , leading the viewer to be witness of what the unsatisfying thirst of ambition and greed .

Once more, we are in front of one the most intelligently written and better conceived scripts of this tireless filmmaker, where the brain sees to impose itself into a world eminently emotional where nobody is totally innocent.

Both brothers appear like the sides of a coin, one represents the wounded conscious, while the other is the symbol of the pragmatism. A similar dramatic device who reminded me to Sean Penn `s "Indian runner".

Watch it, because it's absolutely gratifying from start to finish.

2 out of 5 stars

Allen's Nightmare Becomes His Fans February 1, 2008
4 out of 10 found this review helpful

I realized something while watching "Cassandra's Dream", the new film written and directed by Woody Allen, and the third straight set in London. In each of his films, during the last decade or so, there is some clue as to what is inspiring the filmmaker to make the particular film you are watching. In "Cassandra's Dream", Ian (Ewan McGregor) and his girlfriend, Angela (Hayley Atwell) are attending a garden party at the country estate of a young British millionaire. The millionaire asks the duo "What is your favorite Greek tragedy?" Yes, let's ignore for a moment the fact that this type of dialogue just doesn't come up in normal conversation. Some of the references are more overt than others, but Allen intends "Dream" to be a modern sort of Greek tragedy, a retelling of his favorite fable.

Ian (McGregor) and Terry (Colin Farrell) are brothers, each with tremendous financial problems. Early in the film, they manage to scrape together some money and buy a small sailboat. After the refurbish it, they christen it "Cassandra's Dream" and set sail. Later, their financial troubles have only deepened; Terry is a gambler and is now 90,000 pounds in the hole, Ian wants to escape working at their parent's restaurant and invest in a business deal to start some hotels in California. When he meets Angela, an aspiring actress, his goals become all the more enticing. Their parents have a history of relying on Uncle Howard (Tom Wilkinson), a successful plastic surgeon and philanthropist, to help them make ends meet. When Uncle Howard comes for a visit, the boys ask him to help out. Uncle Howard agrees, but it appears he isn't as saintly as Ian and Terry's mother believe and he needs some help; a former business associate is threatening to divulge some secrets about Howard's business dealings, threatening his business and livelihood. He needs his nephews to kill the informer. I mean, they are asking for a lot of money, again, so it seems like a fair exchange.

Eschewing the relationship- based comedies and the slapstick derived shenanigans he is best-known for, Allen revisits the sort of shady moral ambiguity he plumbed so memorably with "Crimes and Misdemeanors" and the more recent "Match Point". The only problem? "Cassandra's Dream" is nowhere near as good or memorable as these other two entries. This leads me to the other oft-noted comment about Woody Allen's films. In the last decade or so, for every good film, there can be two or more films that are mediocre or just plain excruciatingly painful films he subjects his fans to. "Matchpoint" was a near great film, showcasing a writer - director with great material and a cast to match. That film was followed by "Scoop", a dreadful excuse for a `funny' film, starring Scarlet Johansson and Hugh Jackman. "Dream" isn't as bad as "Scoop", but it is a long way from "Matchpoint".

One of the key problems with "Dream" is everyone talks, a lot. Ian talks about his potential business deal and needing money for that. Then he meets
Angela and they talk about moving to California together. Ian talks with Terry about Terry's gambling. Terry talks with Ian about his gambling debts. We get it. They have money problems. Ian talks about his unhappiness with his life, he doesn't like working at his family restaurant and wants to escape to California. He talks about this with Terry, he talks about this with his dad, he talks about this with his mom, and he talks about this with Angela. Then, his father brings up Ian's grand ambitions, which have been problematic in the past. Many times. After Uncle Howard makes his request, Ian and Terry have many conversations about murdering his business associate; Ian seems to have little problem with the idea, Terry has a lot of problems with it. But they both need money. And then discuss why they need the money again.

Interrupting these numerous and varied discussions, the two brothers take their newly refurbished boat out, they murder a man, and later, they take the boat out again.

Many filmmakers have made their careers crafting films using a lot of well-written, bordering on clever dialogue throughout. Allen himself has been known to create dialogue for his characters giving them a comedic spin, making them memorable. But Allen is also guilty of writing dialogue in his voice, varying it little, despite the age, economic status or sex of the character. In many of the director's best films, the sheer number of characters he has floating throughout the story masks this problem. Most of his best films have at least half dozen well-known actors playing various parts, usually more. This gives all of the characters the opportunity to absorb these awkward lines, while waiting for the chance to utter the funny and memorable dialogue he is best known for. But when he makes smaller films, with fewer characters, the problem becomes amplified. In "Dream", the majority of the dialogue is between Ian and Terry, or between one of the brothers and their significant others. So when they say things like "Oh, my God, I feel so self-conscious right now", you almost want to laugh because we half expect this to be an amusing line spoken by one of Allen's signature characters, the type he often plays and models after our image of him. The filmmaker's years of analysis and self-reflection have always played a part in his work. But in "Dream", he has no doppelganger, no stand-in. So when a young twenty-something actress says a line similar to this, it feels phony and contrived.

Also, the two brothers address each other by name, a lot, when talking to one another. I don't know about you. But when I am having a conversation with one other person, I rarely use their name, and only when I am trying to emphasize what I am saying. Because Terry and Ian do this so much, it is almost as though Allen is trying to keep track of who is speaking his dialogue.

"Matchpoint" is a very similar film, yet a more successful one. In that film, the two main characters faced a moral dilemma together and their actions led the story. In "Dream", the two brothers face an unpleasant task together, yet one of them is clearly very bothered about his part of the task, while the other seems more put out by his brother's reluctance to complete the required actions. So, they talk about it, and one brother tries to convince the other. And they talk some more. And then talk some more.

The two leads do their best with the dialogue. While McGregor seems the most comfortable with the awkward lines and excessive dialogue, Farrell is more successful at creating his character. Terry is the black sheep of the family and a gambler. Riding the roller coaster accompanying this type of addiction, he is overjoyed one day and morose the next. When their Uncle asks them to murder a potentially harmful business associate, you might expect him to have the easier time accepting the chore ahead of them. But he struggles with the moral dilemmas associated with this task, tossing and turning as he sleeps. Farrell is able to make Terry seem weaker and more vulnerable.

McGregor's Ian falls for Angela, a glamorous actress, early in the film. Before this, Ian is desperate to raise some money to invest in a new business deal in California, to escape the dungeon that is their parent's restaurant. After he meets Angela, he seems more determined to make this happen, to make her more interested in him. What actress wouldn't want to move to California, to be closer to Hollywood and stardom? But despite some off-hand references by his father, we never get a feeling for how and why Ian is able to so easily go ahead with his Uncle's request. I understand he will get money and be able to make the business deal a reality, but just listening to people talk about these things doesn't help to make them visually interesting.

Tom Wilkinson plays Uncle Harold and while he is interesting to watch, this happens more because you keep waiting for some subtle hint of his true diabolical nature. When he reveals what he wants his nephews to do, it's diabolical, for sure, and he is desperate, desperate for this potential source of harm to go away. But the actor never gives us a brief glimpse of something else, something lying beneath the surface.

In fact, that is pretty much the problem with the entire film; there is nothing below the surface and because of all of the talk, nothing is really visually interesting.

3 out of 5 stars

Allen Not Up to Par with a Noirish Parable About Desperate Brothers June 6, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

There's an oddly pinched tone to Woody Allen's 2007 noirish morality tale about the evil men are willing to do for the elusive things they can't have. Still in exile in London for his third film in a row across the pond, Allen has made a film that is recognizably his own even although he is nowhere to be seen this time. You can tell by the clean cinematography courtesy of Vilmos Zsigmond (Close Encounters of the Third Kind), the dialogue-rich scenes, and the parable-like way the story unfolds as if it was a contemporary take on a classic Greek tragedy. In this respect, the film immediately recalls Allen's 2005 Match Point, but this time, the moralistic perspective clamps down the dramatic angle as the narrative takes a well-trodden path. The title refers to a small sailboat much sought after by two working-class brothers. On the surface, older brother Ian is the prototypical good son who works at his father's struggling restaurant out of familial devotion.

Younger brother Ian, however, has an addictive personality - whether it's gambling, alcohol or pills - that makes him the object of ridicule and scorn by his parents. We soon discover that both are really the opposite of what they appear. By casting Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell as Ian and Terry, Allen appears to be switching the roles one would associate with the actors' screen personas. The usually gallant McGregor plays the cool Machiavellian one, while the cocksure Farrell is the naive, guilt-ridden one. Thanks to Terry's lucky betting streak, the brothers get the boat and quickly get in over their heads. Ian needs funding in order to invest in a chain of high-end hotels in California, while Terry racks up insurmountable gambling debts. Just in time, the family success, their well-heeled Uncle Howard shows up, and the brothers waste little time in asking him for money since Howard has been helping their parents for years. The central plot twist comes as Howard is willing to help the boys upon the condition that they kill a colleague that could destroy him in the midst of a pending investigation into his clinic business.

How the plot evolves is pretty standard, and Allen appears to have trouble keeping it all reasonably suspenseful. The problem is that Terry's emotional breakdown is dragged out amid the contrived plot twists until the somewhat ironic ending. While Tom Wilkinson is dependably compelling in his few scenes as Uncle Howard, the rest of the performances are variable in quality. McGregor captures the ambition of his character, but he is not nearly as convincing when Ian's desperation turns malevolent. Farrell is comparatively more surprising as Terry as he shows his character's budding conscience with conviction. It's too bad Allen's screenplay lets him fester in his guilt for so long. Newcomer Hayley Atwell lacks the range to play Ian's actress girlfriend Angela as anything more than a spoiled beauty. Sally Hawkins is better as Terry's effusive, concerned girlfriend Kate, but she is given little screen time. This is not Allen's finest hour, not by a long shot, but this film still has worthwhile moments. Like most video transfers of Allen's film, the 2008 DVD offers no extras.

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