Helena (Gemma Jones) has only one place to turn since her husband (Anthony Hopkins) left her for a younger actress/dancer named Charmaine (Lucy Punch). Helena turns to Cristal (Pauline Cole) who has a knack for seeing into the future though always managing to be one step behind what’s really predictable. Helena’s daughter, Sally (Naomi Watts) doesn’t dare warn her mother that Cristal’s a fraud,since Cristal is the one thing that manages to keep her mother sane, not to mention from talking to herself. And besides, Sally has her own troubles. She’s married to Roy (John Brolin) a frustrated, unemployed novelist with writer’s block, who spends all day gazing out the bedroom window to pretty Dia (Freida Pinto) across the way. (You know her as that angelic girl who stole our hearts in Slumdog Millionaire.) Angelic to look at, yes, but she can not act. Antonio Banderas is Sally’s boss at the art gallery and well, everybody’s in a tangled mess. This is writer/director Woody Allen’s best film since Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Part stage play and part soap opera, the movie delivers a big looming message. We all cope with our daily problems differently. Cristal the psychic tells Helena the things she needs to hear, while the rest of the world tries to figure on strategies to bring them into the future. Very smart, very funny and very Woody. Four tiaras
