Cassandra's Dream

Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell are brothers and best friends whose ambitions and weaknesses land them in a dilemma that begins to eat at their solidarity in Woody Allen's third British production, one of his "serious" films and a rare Allen movie set in the milieu of working-class lives with big ambitions. McGregor wants to leave the family restaurant and plays at being a big wheel as he romances a sultry stage actress (Hayley Atwell), and Farrell is a compulsive gambler whose winning streak ends abruptly, landing him deep in debt. Their jet-setting, self-made-millionaire uncle (Tom Wilkinson) offers to help them both in return for a wee favor: a little murder that he'd like to keep in the family. It's a tragedy with a capital T, echoed in the title (the name of the brothers' boat, their only real escape from the world) and pounded home in the foreboding Philip Glass score. Allen reworks themes explored more satisfyingly in "Crimes and Misdemeanors" and "Match Point," and his writing seems lazy, from the sketchy plotting to the blunt dialogue, yet he can still spin a compelling web from it. Sally Hawkins and Phil Davis co-star. No supplements.