I could've easily given this film 4 stars, I am that disappointed with it. But some of the acting, and some of the direction and editing, and the cinematography is good enough to raise it to 6 stars. My main overarching complaint with this film, and the two which preceded it, is that I just wasn't impressed with or even entertained by the dialog. Some of it is insightful and clever and relevant but it just seems to keep repeating in different words, in different modes, the same sentiment. So when the chatter - the endless, circuitous chatter that isn't one half as clever as it likes to think it is - finally subsides we are left with two very attractive, semi intelligent narcissists marveling at the tedium of their lives. I was initially fascinated by the intensity of their irksome self interest, but I soon tired of this. Delpy is breathtakingly gorgeous and a supremely talented actress and Ethan Hawke is likewise attractive and a genuinely compelling thespian, but the self fascinated, often tedious discourse was just too calculated, contrived and manipulative for no other reason than to impress me with its audacious theatricality. I was craving a genuine, mundane, real moment that wasn't so emphatically genuine, mundane, and real.
The repeated times I audibly uttered such words as "Oh c'mon!" and "Really?!" and "A-Doy!" make me think I may possibly benefit from a few sessions with a gifted relationship therapist because every utterance of desire and disillusionment in this talk junkie's dream had me contemptuous of the very idea of anyone ever again attempting to pair up. I know this opinion is the opposite of popular but I must be candid and frank and honest with you good readers. In short - not for me.
The repeated times I audibly uttered such words as "Oh c'mon!" and "Really?!" and "A-Doy!" make me think I may possibly benefit from a few sessions with a gifted relationship therapist because every utterance of desire and disillusionment in this talk junkie's dream had me contemptuous of the very idea of anyone ever again attempting to pair up. I know this opinion is the opposite of popular but I must be candid and frank and honest with you good readers. In short - not for me.