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Freida Pinto is Dia and Josh Brolin is Roy in ‘You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger.’ Pinto is one of the supporting players who makes a great impression in the film.

Woody Allen is once again gleefully messing with his ridiculous characters’ lives, but there isn’t much joy for anyone watching.

Sure, there are some laughs. But mostly these people feel shallow, and it’s hard to muster much enthusiasm for their foibles. They’re just like us, Allen seems to say — except less interesting.

Not that it matters all that much. This is a very minor entry in the writer-director’s prodigious canon, despite the major-league cast: Anthony Hopkins, Naomi Watts, Josh Brolin, Antonio Banderas. But a couple of supporting players make the greatest impression: Freida Pinto and Lucy Punch, who represent opposite ends on the spectrum of female desirability.

And desire is what it’s all about. These people all want something or someone that’s different than what they have, whether it’s a job, an apartment or a new love.

“You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger,” set in London, involves the intertwined lives of the rich and the far less privileged who covet such wealth.

Hopkins stars as wealthy Alfie Shepridge, who decides he’s tired of being married to his longtime wife, Helena (Gemma Jones), and sets off on a new life of workouts, nightclubs and much younger women. He ends up falling for a working-class call girl and wannabe actress named Charmaine (Punch), whose paid-for affections he mistakes for love.

Helena, meanwhile, heads off to a fake psychic who tells her what she wants to hear and takes her money. Helena drops in after each session, unannounced, on her daughter, Sally (Watts), and Sally’s American husband, Roy (Brolin), who are having marital problems of their own.

Sally is an assistant at an art gallery, working for the sophisticated Greg Clemente (Banderas). Just as her career is taking off, she feels frustrated at home: She wants a baby; Roy is reluctant. He’s busy working on his second novel and trying to prove his successful first book was no fluke.

Barely making any money, they’re stuck living in a cramped flat. But the upside of that, for Roy at least, is the view: of the mysterious young woman who lives across the way, always wears red and plays the guitar beautifully. He flirts his way into a lunch with her.

Of course, she’s not the answer to Roy’s troubles, either, just as Charmaine won’t make Alfie’s life better and the psychic won’t lead Helena in the right direction. They can all dream. We may or may not care.

If you go

What: “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger”

Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Naomi Watts, Josh Brolin and Antonio Banderas

Directed by: Woody Allen

Rated: R for some language

Running time: 98 minutes