Cassandra's Dream

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.

Woody Allen returns to familiar territory in Cassandra's Dream. The whole murder and mystery thing in London that has been his main theme since Match Point and Scoop is getting a bit boring. Match Point was good and got him his best reviews in twenty years. However it was too similar to a section of Crimes and Misdemeanors, the last film that got him those rave reviews, in which a man has an affair and then plots to kill his mistress. Cassandra's Dream is different as it tells the story of two brothers who find themselves desperate and in need of cash. The Blaine brothers are two working class lads who need a large amount of money and quick. Terry (Colin Farrell) is a mechanic with a gambling problem who has just lost big at the track and owes some dangerous people . Ian (Ewan McGregor) works at their dad's restaurant out of pity but dreams of finding the right girl and opening his own chain of hotels. One day while driving in the countryside he meets a pretty actress and begins to woo her. He can't afford to buy her affections however so he too needs money. The boy's Uncle Howard (Tom Wilkinson) is rich and has always come through for the family before. When he arrives in town each brother presents their case to him and asks him for the money. Howard isn't prepared to just give it to them like he has done before. He wants a return on his investment. A former business partner is set to testify against him in an upcoming trial. The testimony could land him in jail for the rest of his life where he would not be able to access his money and be useless to the boys. He wants the man taken care of as he explains it. Terry is shocked to hear this and immediately refuses to participate in a murder. Ian on the other hand makes it his duty to convince his brother that this is their only way out of their current predicament. The rest of the film concerns the brothers plotting and going through with a murder and the consequences of their actions. What happens to Terry makes this film somewhat unique and is certainly unexpected. Farrell and McGregor are quite good and Tom Wilkinson is perfect as the rich uncle who is sympathetic one moment but menacing and dangerous the next. It has some good things going for it but ultimately it gets boring because it is repetitive. It isn't hard to see why this film never found a distributor at Cannes and instead went straight to DVD.

Woody Allen's "Cassandra's Dream" is a tightly-wound fable about the morality and consequences of overweening ambition. Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell star as two working-class brothers who start out with outsized dreams but end up with a wealth of troubles wrought by obsessive social climbing. Ian (McGregor) passes himself off as a high-rolling property investor/developer, largely to impress his paramour, an alluring actress with a wondering eye (Hayley Atwell), while Terry (Farrell) sinks into the mire of compulsive gambling. In their desperation to finance their respective endeavors, the brothers turn to a wealthy uncle (Tom Wilkinson), who in turn extracts a deadly Faustian bargain from his nephews. Like 2006's "Match Point," "Cassandra's Dream" is yet another in a string of movies that are propelled by Woody Allen's lifelong fascination with class, morality (especially as it is defined or interpreted by the socially prominent) and the resulting friction. As with "Match Point," "Cassandra's Dream" has a spine-tingling, thriller-like urgency that quickens and intensifies as the story moves along. And Colin Farrell gives what may be one of his finer performances as the boozing, pill-popping and guilt-ridden prole unwittingly roped into an unspeakable vendetta.

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