You will meet a tall dark stranger

Woody Allen is a legend, he makes great movies with mixed sensibilities. So when I got a chance to see the screening of his latest one " You will meet a tall dark stranger", I grabbed it & booked tickets for it three weeks in advance. The name of the movie was enigmatic & mysterious, somewhat more for the opposite gender but I didn't mind. After all this is the same who also made Annie Hall, Manhattan & Vicky Cristina Barcelona. The hall was packed to strength & I had good company
Here are the first thoughts about the movie. Overall, the flow is natural & nicely paced. The screenplay is also good & the director effortlessly switches between the stories of the characters without leaving a gap viz. the zeal of Anthony Hopkins to become younger is well interspersed with the frustration of Naomi Watts at the state of her life. The voice narration is the background has a nice touch, the style reminiscent of his earlier movie " Vicky Cristina Barcelona". However the movie does leave with you with some unanswered questions like what happens to Anthony Hopkins, Naomi Watts, Lucy Punch etc. But then, the director always treats the audience with respect & leaves the ending of some characters to their imagination. After all, it is a movie not a spoon feeding exercise

The movie does make you wonder about relationships & the folklores & myths sorrounding it which are worth exploring.
Example 1: People always romantacize the fact its great to fall in love & grow old together. The movie brought an example of it & raised an important question. What happens if a couple falls out of love when they grow old. How difficult would it be to re-start your life? Would you really make the effort to find someone as the movie showed or you would be so overtaken with grief & cynicism that you would wallow in self pity? You could always try to find a young girl but more often than not, it represents the chase of a dream which can never be fulfilled. The movie somehow assumes that both characters have moved on effortlessly which may be difficult in real life
Example 2: The marriage of Naomi Watts (Sally) & Josh Brolin(Roy) - Roy is a one novel wonder & has been working ( presumably) to get his next hit. Sally is frustrated with her life & needs freedom & to achieve her dream of opening the art gallery. Her marriage is not making her happy, she has to depend on her mother to run the household expenses. She still holds on to her marriage inspite of being attracted to her obviously handsome boss Antonio Bandera( Greg). She even makes a futile attempt to show her feelings to him but it was a case of being too late. But in real life, what would any person in the place of Sally have done? I mean, you marry someone for love, for reasons to build things togther, have dreams, share them & have a family. Midway in life, you realize that you are not exactly on the way to get all of those, what is the commonly chosen path? Would you look for love outside marriage while staying in it, would you separate with the hope of something new or would you just go on with your existence accepting it as your fate? I think the answer to this question depends a lot on your gender & I am not trying to build stereotypes here - Men for example would usually choose between the first two options & statistically speaking, most men would opt for option 1 & especially if they have kids. On the other hand, its really difficult to build a stereotype for women here as they are more sensitive & complex people. But if I was to place myself in the shoes of a woman & that by no means is an easy task, I think most women would choose option 2 or in many cases option 3
This is the first set of thoughts about the movie, second thoughts soon to follow