The decline of Woody Allen
His latest film Cassandra's Dream should never have seen the light of day, says Ed West
23 May 2008

Cassandra's Dream stars Ewan McGregor, left, and Colin Farrell

What has happened to Woody Allen? It is almost as if he was replaced at the start of the decade by an extra-terrestrial body-snatcher who had mastered the art of space travel, but, alas, had no experience of making films. If he keeps it up at this rate the phrase "it was like watching a Woody Allen movie" will enter the English language to denote a period of time that was unenjoyable and wasted.

Cassandra's Dream is the third of Woody Allen's London trilogy, and while this city was proud to poach New York's finest (albeit with his reputation in tatters), it has not been a happy period artistically. The tennis thriller Match Point was panned, the second, Scoop, was not even released here, and Cassandra's Dream should not have seen the light of day either.

The film sometimes seems like it's set in the 1950s - the acting is reminiscent of kitchen-sink dramas where actors thought that shouting made them sound authentically working class. The dialogue is so "show and tell" that sometimes it seems like the actors are reading out the director's notes rather than the script - "families stick together", the mother keeps exhorting: can't we just infer that from the acting, please?

Ian (Ewan McGregor) and Terry (Colin Farrell) are two Cockney brothers driven to destruction by the former's ambition and the latter's weakness.

Ian works in his dad's restaurant but wants to make a go of it as a property investor; his brother is a mechanic but has vague dreams of opening a sports shop. Together they buy a boat, Cassandra's Dream, named after a dog that came in for Terry, a symbol of their family unity.

McGregor's character is a more handsome version of Ian Beale from EastEnders, trying to make it big but always slightly too mediocre. Indeed the acting is of EastEnders standard. "Don't you lecture me," the mother shouts at Terry. "Drink and gambling. That's your answer to life's problems."

None of it feels right. For example, non-ethnic working-class Londoners don't run old family restaurants; nor do car mechanics buy nice places in Fulham when they're setting up a nest with their girlfriend. Even the inside décor is strangely 1970s. Londoners do not talk like that, behave like that or live in homes like that.

Terry's gambling, which is going fine for the first 20 minutes, inevitably goes wrong and leads to a plot set-up: where can they get the £90,000 that will stop his legs being broken? Help arrives in the form of their rich plastic surgeon uncle Howard (Tom Wilkinson), who agrees to pay off Terry's debts and help Ian set up his business, but with one small proviso - they must murder an employee of his who will expose him.

And so the two brothers must decide whether they are prepared to "break God's law", as Terry puts it. Unfortunately most of the cinema audience only wanted to murder Woody Allen.

Personally I judge a film by how much I crave a cigarette. So, while ostensibly I was in a cinema watching 21st-century west London, inside I was in a 1980s-era Camel advert in the desert or talking to the Marlboro Man. (Of course, this wasn't helped by the fact that everyone smoked throughout this film, further adding to its weird dated effect). The five minutes I spent in the toilet halfway through the film were the most enjoyable and rewarding period of the 110 minutes I wasted here.

Cassandra's Dream feels like the work of a 17-year-old rather than a seventy-something veteran, although perhaps that is too harsh on a genius whose powers are fading. The script is terrible, and so the acting is terrible. When Ian rescues a beautiful woman stranded in her car on a country lane, she tells him she's an actress. At that point the audience in the cinema laughed as much as they might at a Manhattan-era Allen film.

Colin Farrell, as always, seems to be wasted in his role of the guilt-ridden gambler falling into alcohol addiction. What's frustrating about Farrell is there seems to be so much talent there, but he always ends up in serious films where the audience chuckles for the wrong reason (remember Alexander?).

Perhaps the only way this film could be rescued would be to turn it into a comedy - the storyline is comedic anyway. Why would Howard hire his two incompetent nephews rather than the thousands of hit-men wandering around the capital, except for the comic potential? I say make the uncle's tan a bit more orange and add a few Carry On-style comic sound effects, and it could have the making of a film worth watching when it comes out on Five.