The movie is a return to the talkative ironic Allen with a movie full of normal but dysfunctional characters and crazy every-day events. The story is a new turn on couple happiness and how to live life to achieve it. The title is an irony itself, because, most of the time we have to move away from the fantasy of the tall dark stranger to find happiness and the man of our dreams, but sometimes is not. In other words, there is no recipe for love and happiness. The movie offers a daring message: if moving away from the ideal does not bring us happiness, why should we move away from the ideal? In other words, the happiness of the fool is always better than the unhappiness of the sound, no matter what we are told about life, love and happiness. In other words, if being delusional makes you happy, we all should be shamelessly delusional. The movie, moreover, shows and caricatures many of the sins and addictions of modern life and the clichéd dreams of the 21st century middle classes.
Despite being a coral movie, most of the cast members shine in their individual performances. Gemma Jones offers a believable charming portrait of an English housewife who sees her life turned upside down after her separation, and tries to find love and resettle emotionally with the help of a fortune-teller. Anthony Hopkins is also great as a 60-something man trying to cope with his age crisis, his high sex drive, his physical limitations and his emotional need to settle; his performance is very honest and down to earth, toning down and giving believability to his character. Lucy Punch is terrific and very funny as the low class "actress" Charmaine who marries Alfie for his money; she is a stupendous addition to the cast, even though she replaced Nicole Kidman at the last moment. Truly, I cannot image Kidman playing this role at all, and certainly not as fresh and cheeky-vulgar as Punch is.
Josh Brolin shines in his depiction of a wannabe writer who cannot find inspiration to finish his last book, and who tries to escape his personal mediocrity and failure as a husband by focusing on the younger front-door girl Dia. Naomi Watts is wasted in a role that does not showcase her great talent, but she is still good in her performance of a talented housewife who puts her life on hold to support her worthless husband. Freida Pinto is very sweet and sexy as Dia; this is a daring role for an Indian actress, as Bollywood has great limitations about showing physical affection, and the Indian public slashes actress who deviate from the norm.
I found Antonio Banderas bland in his role of Sally's boss Greg. One wonders why he keeps accepting stupid roles in English, which don't make him any favour as an actor and highlight his difficulties in expressing himself as an actor in English; he is more selective with his Spanish-speaking roles, where he always offers much better performances. There is a little cameo by Pauline Collins as fortune-teller and Helena's best friend Cristal.
Highly amusing and entertaining, the movie has some very good points, an acceptable but soapy script, excellent performances and a nice European atmosphere. One of those movies that, without being brilliant or memorable, will stay with you longer than you expected!
