This is a good movie and I would watch five minutes of a Woody Allen movie rather than see 95% of the movies out there. Not to get sidetracked, but it's not ambitious so you don't have to know what happens exactly, you don't have to have it gift-wrapped, it just is, but it didn't set itself up to be groundbreaking philosophical conceptual contrived tripe. It's just a film, as Mr. Allen reminds us with his pretentiously mundane American voice-over narrator. Which turns the focus onto the characters and relationships. Which is a good place to be when you have great actors. I really enjoyed the film. But the main thing I felt compelled to say (and I haven't written anything on here in years) is that Anthony Hopkins is so good, I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. It's hardly a 'crowning achievement' to his career, but it is to me, because he so earnestly and vulnerably performed this role, it defied many things (I'll name two): 1) his own career and his tendency to portray epic characters and all that intelligent bravado within.. in the movie he is completely defeated without even a proper stage, a flimsy (intentionally) comedy he has no business being in (of course he does), in which his character is confronted with mortality and insignificance, and ultimately the relevant question I know he must ask himself, and seeing him deal with that in the smallness of the medium was astounding. Truly astounding. Because also 2) He shatters the Woody Allen film formula stereotype. I was expecting the Anthony Hopkins version of Woody Allen, and there was some of that, a la Kenneth Branaugh in Celebrity. But whether it was all Hopkins or all Allen or both his portrayal rejects the typical neurotic response to Allen's comio-dramatic situations and instead shows us a golden vein of truth that for me was completely unexpected, impeccably performed and very moving. I had been a huge Hopkins fan since Nixon and in recent years had become leery of his projects to the extent I didn't bother to consider going to see them anymore. But I knew the combination of Woody Allen and he would be something special. For Allen fans, to me his acting breaks the Allen mold, crushes it, and I left the theater a bit unnerved and touched. I haven't read anyone else comment on this in a similar way and had to say something.
Review of You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger
