vivi gucci

but

the final scene in the physics class rang wholly untrue, thereby ruining the entire film for me. call me picky. you'll see what i mean. otherwise, it was thoughtful and just...nice. alan arkin's character makes this movie. he's a great actor, with a hell of a voice. some of the plot points were a tad predictable, but they still had impact and intelligence. bonus points for no neatly packaged trite ending.

and very true to the book! the actress who plays Eve is wonderful (you'll cheer her on), but Pierre is a little too old. the pain of the characters is captured beautifully in the dialogue. see if you can find this movie. it's worth it.

This film is truly a vortex of awfulness. it got progressively worse and worse with each scene, and in doing so sucked me in because i had to see how much more pathetic it could get. The slo-mo, the flashbacks, the awkward angles, the "Mission Impossible: II" style new-agey soundtrack backing up some scenes...as if it were not shown at Sundance, but made there, by a pack of beginning directors and screenwriters searching to create an "uncomfortable" and "thought-provoking" little masterpiece. And just when it couldn't get any worse...enter Billy Zane! It made me want to vomit--but maybe that was the scene in which Summer Phoenix sucked vomit-covered face. This story would have been much better handled by a more experienced, less gimmicky director/screenwriter. A waste of a gorgeous and charming young actor on an absolute crap film.