Toronto. Cassandra's Dream.

"[T]o be honest, I liked [Cassandra's Dream] a bit better than Match Point - [Colin] Farrell is especially winning as a goodhearted yob," writes the Boston Globe's Ty Burr. "But Allen still has trouble writing dialogue that falls believably off the tongues of British characters, and around the midpoint comes a shift in tone that had the festival audience laughing out loud. They thought they were supposed to, but I'm not so sure."

"With Match Point and Cassandra, [Woody] Allen takes out his pent-up aggressions and relieves his existential inquiries in a primal, cinematic way, here unleashing a quiet, sinister fury of complicated allegiances to family and how far you would go to protect yourself (in the most extreme circumstances) instead of your family," writes Matt Mazur at PopMatters.

"The rhythms are off in ways that seem unusual even by the standards of Allen's latest work," blogs Ben Kenigsberg for Time Out Chicago. "And Woody, I know you've got an apparent career goal to work with every luminary under the sun - but really, Philip Glass? Hearing his music over the usual Windsor-typeface credits creates a sense of cognitive dissonance that doesn't dissipate until the end."

"Cassandra's Dream is an interesting but superficial film that isn't sure if it wants to be a light drama or a dark comedy," writes Monika Bartzyel at Cinematical.

"While I surely liked it, Allen's screenplay plays it safe from beginning to end, following conventions and never really challenging them," writes Mack at Twitch. "It'll play well to the mature movie going crowd and demand nothing more of them but to sit back and enjoy the story as it unravels. Good but not great."

At the TIFF press conference, ST VanAirsdale asked Allen "if he still had New York stories to tell and if he felt professionally exiled at all from his hometown." Whatever you think of his recent movies, I'll bet the answer'll make you crack a smile.

Posted by dwhudson at October 2, 2007 7:55 AM