Cassandra's Dream

Movie Info

Genre(s): Crime  |  Drama

Written by: Woody Allen

Directed by: Woody Allen

Release Date:
Theatrical: January 18, 2008
DVD: May 27, 2008

Running Time: 108 minutes, Color

Origin: USA / UK

Summary

RATING: Not Rated

Starring Ewan McGregor, Colin Farrell, Tom Wilkinson, Sally Hawkins, and Hayley Atwell

Set in contemporary London, Cassandra's Dream is a powerful and thrilling story about two brothers who are desperate to better their troubled lives. One is a chronic gambler in debt over his head, and the other is a young man in love with a beautiful woman he has recently met. Their lives gradually become entangled in a sinister situation with intense and unfortunate results. (Weinstein Company)

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Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site

What The Critics Said

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What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 7.6 (out of 10) based on 18 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Craig G. gave it a1:
Quite possibly one of the worst movies I have seen in a long time. However I was so morbidly fascinated that I watched it all the way through on DVD to see how bad it could get. Poor script, poorly delivered by people who should have known better. The dramatic moments were quite funny. It looked like a TV soap opera gone wrong. And when lines were fluffed, why didnt the director say Cut and do it again? Redeeming features are few but some of the settings were quite pretty and the old Jaguar cars were nice too but I still couldnt see their purpose _ a bit of window dressing I suppose. And where did the boys' parents go after the dastardly deed was done? Not a word from them as the film grinds to a close. In short contrived and awful. Cassandra's dream should be Woody's nightmare.

Tom M. gave it an8:
Similar to Bob Dylan in music anything Woody Allen creates is a must, no matter what the scribes or experts say. And I'm sure "Cassandra's Dream" will get its share of thumbs-down reviews from non-Woody afficionados. I liked it. The storyline was dark, strangely human, and fun. The acting was good, especially Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell as the two brothers. I had some trouble, initially, with the British accents, but even that seemed to dissipate as the movie continued.

Jay H. gave it an8:
Excellent suspense thriller, brilliantly directed and written by Woody Allen. The score is outstanding, as is the cinematography. Convincingly told and very well acted by everyone. It's held my interest throughout. Superb.

Michael E. gave it a6:
Pretty ordinary stuff, but Woody is a good enough writer and director to pull it off. At any rate it isn't as cold and familiar as "Match Point."

Chad S. gave it a7:
"Cassandra's Dream" may be set in England, but some of its characters, you could argue, have a New York-state-of-mind. Just like people who say they were born into the wrong family; Ian(Ewan McGregor) and Angela(Hayley Atwell) strike me as sophisticates who somehow ended up in a Mike Leigh film. Even though Ian and Angela belong to the same working class as Terry(Colin Farrell) and Kate(Sally Hawkins), they're just conspicuously better looking, and more refined than Ian's brother and girlfriend. Like many New Yorkers, the handsome couple are planning a move to California. Even though "Cassandra's Dream" seems to mark a departure from this filmmaker's fascination with the middle-upper class, he's far from being a humane filmmaker like Leigh, or Ken Loach. Although Ian is comparatively amoral when sized-up against his tortured brother, he one-ups Terry when push comes to shove, because the favorite son has so much more at stake. Ian, to my utter disbelief, ends up being more altruistic than Terry. Ian's actions goes against the grain of the film's rhetoric, which convinces us that Terry needs to be dealt with by any means necessary. Because rhetoric in the filmic world differs from its real-life counterpart. Since nobody can get hurt from a vicarious thrill, we engage our loyalties with people from the wrong side of the law, and root for their clean getaway. Ian & Terry are no different than, say, Bonnie & Clyde, but with a difference. The brothers, unlike the fugitive lovers from the 1967 Arthur Penn film, have a caste system in place. They're not treated as equals. "Cassandra's Dream", inadvertently, says a lot about this filmmaker, whom we've always suspected was filled with contempt for the proletariat. Ian's redemption at the end of "Cassandra's Dream" is proof of an inherent Manhattan haughtiness that puts a damper, but doesn't quite cancel out the film's many strengths. But make no mistake, there is a class-warfare subtext at play here.

Mark B. gave it an8:
Except for an early scene that quotes a famous bit in Steven Spielberg's Jaws (and maybe indicates that the two brothers in the scene, who are soon to commit an inextricable crime would have been better off if Bruce the Shark had gobbled them up) Woody Allen's latest film is almost totally devoid of humor. (Some might say that's ok, so were his most recent comedies.) The staging and shooting of several long sequences in this movie are so static that one occasionally wishes that the brothers' weapon of choice had been not a zip gun but a claw hammer, the better to remove the nails affixing the camera to the ground. And the surprise ending is far too abrupt to fully carry the punch Woody intended to deliver. Nevertheless, this is Allen's best, most accomplished and entertaining film since Crimes and Misdemeanors over a decade ago. (Note, of course, that neither film will exactly rival The Sound of Music as a blues-chaser, but who said that happy and enjoyable were always synonymous?) Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell , both playing wonderfully against type, are cast as brothers tempted to carry out a hit that would solve various financial needs and wants; it's not surprising that in classic tradition the assignment's completion and aftermath don't go as simply and smoothly as planned, but the originality of this movie arises from the fact that it would be the perfect crime if someone's conscience didn't so relentlessly get in the way. Allen shows us which brother has a sense of ethics and which is just a wee bit, um, challenged in that area early on: Ian (McGregor) dumps his girlfriend for a woman he literally meets on the road, while Terry (Farrell) is loyal to his spouse. (But then, since she's the sweetest woman in the world--if occasionally a little clueless--and she's played by the astonishingly adorable Sally Hawkins, who here pleasantly resembles mid-1980s Rosanna Arquette, why WOULDN'T he be? Love that overbite!) It's instructive to observe that coldblooded Ian endlessly aspires to upward mobility while the compulsive Terry is a working-class joe; Allen knows that the biggest sociopaths often aren't serial killers but CEOs and that it's often not the Norman Bateses or even Hannibal Lecters you have to look out for but the Gordon Gekkos...or worse, Gekko wannabes. Terrific byplay between the brothers and an almost comically overwrought score by Phillip Glass (who also did the honors for 2006's Notes on a Scandal with equally smashing results) give Cassandra's Dream a higher rewatchability factor than Allen's earlier exercise in Britpop bloodshed, Match Point. Despite some predictable musings about greed, fate and The Meaning Of It All, Cassandra's Dream plays like a really, really good extended episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents...and how many movies, by Allen or anybody else, can make THAT estimable claim?

Jensen D. gave it a10:
This is definitely the best movie that I have seen in some time. The middle class setting is much more realistic than most of Woody Allen's settings, and the acting is first rate. The film is a morality tale, and its themes stayed with me long after the closing credits. In brief:: one of Woody's best!

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