You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger is finally being released in Australia today (17th January 2013). Originally released in 2010, it’s taken three years to receive a cinematic release down under. There’s a new website, a new interview and article revealing the origins of the strange deal, and new reviews.
Umbrella Entertainment, the distributor, has created a flashy new stuff for the Australian release. A new poster above, Australian trailer below and a new website.
The Sydney Morning Herald ran a long piece about Allen’s history in Australia, and got some quotes from him – but they seem like old quotes.
Allen on Anthony Hopkins character in the film:
This movie is completely made up. The older man with a young woman is a good theme for a writer because you can make very good jokes with that kind of thing.
He also spoke about Australian actors in his films.
It’s like a renaissance. Australia is a faraway country-continent and nobody had any particular thoughts and all of a sudden Naomi Watts comes out and Hugh Jackman [a British aristocrat in Scoop] and the beautiful one who was married to Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman. Judy Davis is a great actress who I worked with [three times] and now there’s Cate Blanchett. It’s incredible.
Nicole Kidman was originally going to appear in ‘You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger‘ but pulled out at the last minute. He would go on to wirk with Judy Davis for a fourth time in To Rome With Love, and Cate Blanchett will star in the new film Blue Jasmine.
‘You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger‘ is not one of Allen’s most acclaimed – it’s actually one of his worse reviewed films. Australian reviewers seem to be following suit.
Ed Gibbs from SMH gave it three stars.
http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/you-will-meet-a-tall-dark-stranger-20130110-2ci4r.html
Viewing this post-Midnight in Paris can prove an inevitably mixed experience. There is none of the charm of that sparkling story. Allen’s mixed experiences with London stand in sharp contrast with his love affair with the French capital.
Blake Howard from Graffiti With Punctuation gave it two stars:
‘You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger’ is the amnesiac relative of Allen’s body of work. It’s wearing the fleshy mask of all that you love; but conducts itself with an abrasive and frightened detachment.
Neala Johnson from News.com.au gives two and a half stars.
As ‘You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger’ plods towards its closing credits, loose ends flapping in the wind, the narrator calls what we’ve just seen “a little tale of sound and fury signifying nothing”. At least Allen got that bit right.
Sarah Ward at ArtsHub also gave it two and a half.
Missing in this paint-by-numbers effort is the director’s warmth, wit, and winning way of making the ridiculousness of ordinary relationships amusing yet relatable.
Julian Wood of Filmink essentially gave it 1 and a half stars.
During this shambolic, self-indulgent bore, you can pass the time by spotting the famous faces just as you can in the audience at the Oscars ceremony, but that is one place where this film won’t turn up.
We guess that was to be expected. ‘You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger‘ is in cinemas in Australia today.
