oOoBarracuda If you are not a fan of Woody Allen's, this film is for you! Cassandra's Dream, written and directed by Woody Allen in 2007 does not, even once, look, sound, or give the vibe of a Woody Allen film. I'm not saying anything that is supposed to resemble "You're not a "true" Woody Allen fan if you like Cassandra's Dream. Of course, there are Woody Allen fans that enjoyed it; I'm simply suggesting that there's something here even for those that don't appreciate Woody's work. I am not a fan of this point in Woody's career where he seemed to be preoccupied with murder and getting away with it. Cassandra's Dream found a pair of brothers who were always experiencing financial woes decide to turn to crime to gain fortune. The problem is, the crime life resulted in them turning against each other.There's a lot I like about Woody Allen films, but my favorite part is consistently the script. I don't know what happened with Cassandra's Dream, but that Woody-like perfect script was absent. The film was oddly cast and absent a score that Woody typically so carefully constructs. Usually, I can find something redeeming in a Woody Allen film, something that I can lean on as positive even in one of his films I didn't care for--I struggle with Cassandra's Dream, however; it was one of the films I blind bought to meet this month's film project so I have plenty of time to change my mind on it.

Gyran Ten years after it was made, I tracked this film down on Amazon. It never got much of a release in the UK and, as far as I know, it has never been shown on television. I'm not surprised. It is even worse than Woody Allen's other two British ventures: Match Point and Scoop. Everything I said about those two films applies in spades to Cassandra's dream: implausible plot, terrible dialogue and wooden acting. It employs a large number of fine British actors. I can only imagine how thrilled they were at being invited to appear in a film by the great Woody Allen and how shattered were their illusions after they had read the script. It was like a 1950's British second feature. Surprisingly, it lasts for 148 interminable minutes. Woody usually confines himself to a snappy 90 minutes. The kindest thing I can say about this film was that I never would have recognised that it was a Woody Allen film. There are a large number of 1 star reviews for this film on IMDb, most of them saying more or less what I have written here so there is not really anything else that I can usefully add.

TheLittleSongbird As someone who really likes, often loves, a lot of Woody Allen's films, there's always a debate on the boards for his films about what film was his best and what was his worst. And Cassandra's Dream is almost always mentioned as his worst or one of them, some going as far to say it's one of the worst films ever made, has one of the worst scripts and that it seemed as if it was made in haste. For me, Cassandra's Dream is nowhere near among Allen's best, in fact it's one of his weaker films, but it was not as bad as I'd heard it was. There are problems, the ending and the script being the biggest issues. The ending is way too rushed and not as tight as it could've been, it just seemed incomplete and with loose ends. The script has its moments of thoughtfulness and tension but this is really not one of Allen's tightest and observant scripts(one of his weakest possibly, but overall there are far worse scripts than this) with some of the speeches on whether murder is moral sounding really clunky and the asides on inevitability and fate coming across as self-conscious. Some of the pacing is tedious and structurally it did seem as though the film was written in haste. Much of the story is compelling though with scenes with tension that you can cut with a knife, the best scene from personal perspective was the one under the tree in the rain which was beautifully shot and the writing had its spark too here. The cinematography is fluid and suitably macabre, Allen's direction has degrees of assurance and while a little too loud and unfitting at times Phillip Glass' score is unmistakably minimalist and incredibly haunting, especially the murder theme. The acting has gotten mixed opinions, some saying it was great, others saying it seemed under-rehearsed. I'd go as far to say that mostly it was the former, apart from some dodgy accents(Colin Farrell's sounded like three rolled into one) and a few actors being underused, wish there was more of Tom Wilkinson. Ewan McGregor carries the film just fine and Farrell matches him in a turn that's funny and emotional. Hayley Atwell shone and Sally Hawkins and Clare Higgins, ever, dependable, are excellent. Tom Wilkinson is not seen much but he stands out in a chilling performance, advantaged by that he is a large part of why the scene under the tree in the rain worked so well as a scene. Sadly, Phil Davis seemed out of place and lost, not helped by that he had next to nothing to work with. All in all, Cassandra's Dream is disappointing and I do share some of the criticisms it's gotten but it does have many merits and is not as bad as all that. 6/10 Bethany Cox

museumofdave An oddity in the Woody Allen canon in many ways; while not a stinker, this brotherly drama listed as a thriller hardly thrills, and the suspense, while it holds the viewer to the screen is seldom intense; one watches, I think, mainly because the film is cast with some of the more interesting actors working today--Tom Wilkinson, Colin Farrell, and Ewan McGregor; the set-up is actually fairly ordinary for crime films, and one waits for director Allen to develop intensity in the situations; during the most heinous murder, for instance, little of its horror is communicated visually, leaving the viewer to wonder why one of the killers is suddenly having nightmares. Watching the film is not exactly time wasted, but I suspect you wont be rushing online to enthusiastically recommend it to a friend