Quartile rating: 6/10 · 1 rating
Two married couples find only trouble and heartache as their complicated lives unfold. After 40 years of marriage, Alfie leaves his wife to pursue what he thinks is happiness with a call girl. His wife, Helena, reeling from abandonment, decides to follow the advice of a psychic. Sally, the daughter of Alfie and Helena, is unhappy in her marriage and develops a crush on her boss, while her husband, Roy, falls for a woman engaged to be married.
A mid-tier Woody Allen ensemble piece that recycles his familiar themes of midlife crisis, infidelity, and self-delusion without adding much new to his canon. The performances are competent—Anthony Hopkins, Naomi Watts, and Josh Brolin do solid work—but the script feels thin and the characters are difficult to engage with. Cinematography is functional London location work without particular visual distinction. The film's relentless pessimism and episodic structure leave little satisfaction, and the ending offers a nihilistic shrug rather than meaningful resolution. Neither funny enough as comedy nor incisive enough as drama, it sits comfortably among Allen's weaker late-career efforts.