I'm so used to the standard Woody Allen movie soundtrack -- old jazz standards, crackly opera recordings, and so on -- that it came as quite a shock to see "score by Philip Glass" during the opening credits. It's the first time in at least 20 years that Allen has used an original score (in fact, I'm not sure he ever has before; any Woody experts out there?). Glass's score is highly effective; his short phrases never repeat in quite the same way, helping greatly to keep the audience on edge.
And the score isn't the only oddity here; Cassandra's Dream feels less like an Allen movie than any other I can remember. Entirely gone are his usual loping rhythms; dialogue here is terse, with no extraneous banter. It's a bit annoying at first, in fact, as characters rush on and off screen for just long enough to deliver some key bit of exposition. But once you adjust to the movie's pacing, there's an interesting story being told.
Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell star as brothers who are in desperate need of money (McGregor for an investment he wants to make; Farrell to pay off gambling debts), and expect their dear old Uncle Howard (Tom Wilkinson) to dig them out as he has done so many times before. But this time, Uncle Howard wants a rather hefty favor in return, and the brothers find their moral and ethical limits put to the test.
Allen has dealt with similar themes before, in better movies like Crimes and Misdemeanors and Match Point. But the performances are good, especially from Farrell (an interesting companion to his work in In Bruges, another character struggling with his conscience) and Wilkinson, darkly funny as a man willing to do anything to save himself -- well, willing to have someone else do anything to save him, at any rate.
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