EARLY into this film, a whisper got put in my ear – “Am I past Woody Allen or is this just not very good?”

“This” was the tart little observation of relationships and ideas that Allen made in Britain in 2010. And it does get better, with a sparkling cast and a screenplay redolent with Allen’s acerbic talent for sampling humanity’s infinite variety.

Divorced Helena (Gemma Jones) has unquestioning confidence in fortune-teller Cristal (Pauline Collins). Helena’s daughter Sally (Naomi Watts) and her aspiring novelist husband Roy (Josh Brolin) stifle their indignation at how Cristal is sucking up Helena’s money. Finding solitude untenable, Sally’s father Alfie (Anthony Hopkins) falls for Charmaine (Lucy Punch) who enjoys spending the funds sustaining Alfie and his financial obligation to Helena and isn’t beyond giving away what she used to charge big money for.

Roy’s publisher tells him to keep trying. In the flat across the lane, he sees dishy guitar-playing Dia (Frieda Pinto). Sally gets work in the gallery owned by Greg (Antonio Banderas). Helena strikes up a friendship with portly bookseller Jonathan (Roger Ashton-Griffiths).

Films populated by unlikeable characters offer their own kind of satisfactions, as this one confirms. Its characters and opportunities for hanky-panky reek of vintage Woody Allen, developing an agreeable abrasiveness that rather reverses the implications of both the options in that whisper in my ear.

At Greater Union