Crappy film

Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Mary (Debra Winger) and Michael (Tracy Letts) are in a troubled marriage. They are trying to keep up appearance before the visit of their son and his girlfriend. Mary is having an affair with Robert (Aidan Gillen) and Michael with Lucy (Melora Walters). There may still be something in their marriage.It's great to have Debra Winger back as a big screen lead. She still has flashes of the old fire. The love lives are muddled which makes them less compelling for me. I couldn't hold on to their marriage or wonder if I can root for its dissolution. The affair partners don't have enough screen time. I also wonder if concentrating on one lead would heighten the emotional impact. While it's nice to have the visit, the effects are not long lasting.

I quite liked this one, though it isn't without flaws. it begins very slowly; there is a lot of time taken to establish mood and setting which caused my thoughts to wonder a little. it picks up quite well after 25 minutes or so and this momentum then continues on quite nicely till the film's conclusion.It's a slightly different take on the aspects of a long term relationship of a married couple who are both currently cheating. The story develops well, and your involvement steadily grows until their son comes home and the dynamic of the film is thrown off key. The acting/directing of this aspect of the film is way too heavy handed and overshadows the plot to the detriment of the films intensity. Why this is done I can only guess, perhaps to add some significance and dimension to their relationship, an explanation as to why they remained together perhaps, who knows. Sadly, it's a mistake in my opinion as it adds nothing to an already fairly strong story, but detracts significantly from it.There are some other issues with the film. The husbands girlfriend is... lets just say an unlikely character who also skews the harmony of the film somewhat. The script is a bit stilted in places, the direction is a little intense, and the story needs to be strengthened and leaned out to make things just a little more edgy. On the whole there really needs to be a bit more substance to the proceedings to 'beef things up a bit'. The acting, the main roles particularly are very good indeed. They certainly had me sold on the situation (I love that) but most other roles are unremarkable.As I said, it's a good film, but it could have been a really good film with a little fine tuning and some re-gigging, but I liked it anyway. I would recommend it as light entertaining viewing.

The premise of this film surely does it no favors. It sounds very much like a standard type of narrative when it's actually not. The way the film progresses in unexpected ways and it never feels forced or contrived. The performances are a testament to how natural it feels, but the screenplay is quite strong as well. Tracy Letts and Debra Winger are both very resonant and vulnerable when they need to be and they hit the various notes of the film in a pitch perfect way throughout. Someone else might have made this a complete melodrama and overblown but the film is anything but. This is highly recommended.

Infidelity in cinema is nothing new. Much like the boiling conflicts of war or the inevitable fissures of generations old and new, the inherent drama of infidelity has always been one of those clear cut and elemental driving forces that has the immediacy to color an entire movie. Reaction to it is almost automatic and the story, depending on who's telling it always seems to virtually write itself. Yet in the case of The Lovers, infidelity is less the flash of conflict as it is the strangely reserved starting point to a story about human peculiarities.The esteemed Debra Winger and acclaimed playwright/due paying bit actor Tracy Letts play Mary and Michael, a middle-aged married couple whose loveless marriage is nearing its dispassionate end. Both barely hide their constant trysts with their respective inamoratos, both of whom are artists and both of whom remind Michael and Mary of who they once were. In the weeks before their estranged son Joel (Ross) is to visit, both simultaneously resolve to end their marriage. Yet as they come closer to the brink of separation, eros takes a hold of them, leading to an impulsive romance.The beauty of The Lovers is it twists and turns in surprising yet painfully human ways. Every time you think you have a firm understanding of the characters at play, something unexpected yet so emphatically human breaches through and the movie gainfully searches for a new dynamic. It's all to our delight. Behind the film's reserved almost dusty demeanor lies a barely hidden heart threatening to burst at the seams. The film for the most part stays true to its quiet composure. Yet in a few key moments the movie almost seems to glitter with the emotional resonance reserved to it welling romantic score.Director Azazel Jacobs does wonders with his workmanlike camera-work. It's purposeful fluidity and literate use of space sells a particular kind of drollness. One that can take the innate beauty of Southern California and make it fade in the background against two deeply flawed characters and their increasingly desperate counterparts. Yet what sells The Lovers's admittedly indie aesthetic, is the film's central foursome; Letts, Winger, Aiden Gillen and Melora Walters. Their reactions to the duplicity, then the double duplicity carries the entirety of the script in their eyes, their body-language, their placement in the room. One could put the film on mute and gleam everything apart from the names.The film as a whole is meant to be a meditation on mature love; a prospect that sometimes falters under the weight of the film's melancholy tone. This is not to say the tone is the problem but rather The Lovers's beat-by-beat story flirts a little too much with melodrama for something not to eventually give. And yes, the movie risks breaking down completely during its final act with the arrival of a coarse Tyler Ross, who slumps in the middle of the film's delicate and disquieting frame, and call out its bulls**t with the subtlety of a bullhorn.Thanks to the unforced earnestness of Winger and Letts (and an oddly perfect song selection), The Lovers finds it within itself to bounce back like a seasoned dancer after a minor trip. What results, may not be the most well-observed study of needy, perilously unhappy people. Yet considering how counterfeit a lot of movies feel nowadays it's nice to see something that attempts to find the audacity in the littlest of moments.