Review by davylevine

We were very disappointed in this film. We chose it because of Julie Gavras' father (Costga-Gavras), who made the very special "Z." Although we did not think that a director's ability would be genetic we did hope that some of her father's bravery and awareness would be available to the daughter. How wrong we were. The movie has just about zero social content. At times it seemed to deal with aging and a man's difficulty in staying current in his profession (architecture). Yet Hurt seemed to be cold and uncaring and the people in his family never confronted him on this. He assumed the role of a stiff, unemotional man with great ease because relatively little is called for in this role. I was fairly well bored by his character. At other times the movie dealt with a woman aging and feeling that she was becoming less attractive. She tries to do something about her sagging flesh, then gets discouraged, then gets active again. Just as we are about to be drawn into this drama the film became a family burlesque before shortly turning again as the main characters drifted apart and then drifted back together again, without explanation or further character development. William Hurt and Isabella Rosselini deserve a better film with a better script and a more mature director. The film seems thrown together, rather poorly edited, and concludes abruptly with what seems like a capitulation to the American audience. The pleasures in this film are too few and too far between. Woody Allen's "Whatever Works" covers much the same ground with much more intelligence, good humor, and plenty of laughs.