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The incredible potency of Eastwood's visual metaphysics (see how the camera so often in his work hovers from above like some perverted God's eyeview that watches but never interferes) meets the substantial (both existential and political) crosscutting (the aesthetic breakthrough of this entry of his) of children/adults perpetually engulfed in their sins. The nightmarish web is further complexed by the no less than four females of the story (and the ghosts of two more, adding to an amazing number of characters for a 138-minute film), building a challenging case of a feminist, anti-feminist and tragedy-like reading of the impossibly dense text. Eastwood dialectics at their most complete - even though perfection is a breath away due to the mechanics of a couple of male performances.

Expressionistic, at times hallucinatory account of a long night's journey into the life of a Scorsesean character (debt paid in full in the end credits) in search of the tiniest break in his life's labour lost. Strong lead by a commanding Patterson, direction suspiciously superior than the script served and, alas, a great soundtrack to underline a film about total contemporary urban dissonance and chaos. A very good "city film", too.

Perhaps to some won't be as profound as it appears (and wants, I guess) to be but, still, this is an ingenius, stimulating and in a sense desperate portrtait of (not so young anymore) artist, lost and, perhaps again, found amidst impossible to us mortals situations of identity lost, disintegrated and then somehow miraculously found and reinvented again. Next to Peter Sellers and Jerry Lewis, Jim Carrey is the most representative "comedy man edition"; lightning fast in his adoption of another man's character, depressed enough to do it as if his life depended on it (so similar to Sellers this one), otherworldly improvisational and terribly heartbreaking at the same time. If you count yourself among his biggest fans, that is.