A Let-Down...
2.5/4 stars

"Abandon all hope ye who enter here"
(& I honestly use this quote because there are just too many justifiable reasons in this case for anyone NOT TO.)

Who would think - even for a second, that a piece involving Jude Law, Clive Owen, MIKE NICHOLS, and the stellar,(and personal crush) Natalie Portman - would be anything less than earth-quaking?? Sadly, quite less than earth-quaking it ended up being.

This is a story for, and of, the soul-less - grotesque game playing seemingly "set up" in order to provide a proper platform for juicy, bitter, dialogue. (Juicy it is, and if wisely used - sprinkled throughout a screenplay with realistic purpose and heart, it would have come across all the more brutally beautiful & heart-wrenching - instead of cheap & mildly tacky at times) (Ugh, I'm so sorry Nichols)

This is a thing that thinks it's unfolding on a stage (& Yes, I say this being a huge - HUGE fan of Virginia Woolf - a sad, rich, dynamic stage-story that played out to PERFECTION on film)

I want to like it - I do! I've watched it repeatedly regardless, but there is little - to no - style or spirit here.
These are just marionettes playing their parts - EACH coming off staggeringly pathetic.

There are tears & begging - wit & cruelty - all the guts needed for an entertaining night @ the theater...But film is film, and there's got to be more than weepy, declarative, "dramatics"...and unfortunately I am always left unsatisfied after this one.

Review by Ghost Seed