Too many fans seem to be blown away

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

This is not the worst film i have ever seen, but it is certainly the worst film that i have seen that had such a potentially great cast. This filmed play has ugly worthless people leading ugly wasteful lives, as the tedium grows ever more unbearable, the acting becomes ever more mechanical and laborious with stale lifeless direction.The story is one long Hollywood conceit,i hated all the characters so cared not one token for any of them, so the film just died in transit.I only got through the entire 2 hours of tedium by watching the DVD in 20 minute chunks.In A word a car crash bore.

It is very much like a stage play, (not surprising since that is where it came from). It is all in the dialogue rather than action; interaction between two or three characters only most of the time, sudden changes of mood and dynamics, more cerebral than visceral. It is more expansive than a stage play though, even though it has that feel about it. The screenplay includes nice cinematic touches like the car phone dialogues where one car over takes the other and he shouts at him as he goes past. A similar thing was done from the balcony of the flat earlier in the film. There are also some qualities of a Michael Mann about it with the use of architecture and music as film elements.The film grew on me as it went along. One of the things that made it difficult perhaps, was that none of the characters were very likable, but the acting by all of them was a tour de force. Nice to see Meg Ryan given a chance to do some real acting instead of being just pretty-pretty set decoration. It's a film that is hard to take in one sitting I think, and will bear repeated viewing with more coming out each time.This film is likely to appeal to people who liked such films as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Glengarry Glen Ross, Le Diner de Cons and others which have a stage play feel about them. Who said that theatre is dead?

A reflection on something - I think - with drugs, sex and stereotypical wannabes all enmeshed in a sort of nihilistic parallel world that means whatever their actions, nobody in the "real world" sees through them. The problem with such obtuse symbolism is that it has to lack focus to suggest representation, but in lacking focus, needs to say something significant to make people think its worth stating. This film says nothing significant about people who don't matter. Subsequently (aside from a few obviously more enlightened reviewers) who cares about what happens to them. I watched, waiting for enlightenment but aimlessly plodding direction and bland cinematography left an occasionally interesting dialogue and tireless actors flailing around, probably hoping something good might come in the editing. Unfortunately it didn't.

After viewing this picture, I became a big fan of Sean Penn,(Eddie),"The Interpreter",'05, who showed his great acting abilities in playing a very hard role to portray on the screen. Meg Ryan,(Bonnie),"In The Cut",'03, played the role of a dippy blonde who would do anything for Eddie and I mean anything. Robin Wright Penn,(Darlene),"Nine Lives",'05 had the hots for Eddie and Eddie had a ball making love to her quite often during the film. Well, after all, they are husband and wife. Garry Shandling,(Artie),"Town & Country",'01 make a few brief appearances and tried to add some humor to his role, which was so so. This is a very strange story, but is really down to earth and has a cast of great actors who did a fantastic job of presenting way out people all mixed up and high on DRUGS!