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Of the many hundreds (or perhaps thousands) of films that I have seen in the past few years, this is by far my favorite. The only "complaint" that I could possibly have is the fact that it is barely long enough. I felt that the film would have been even more powerful if it were in the 2.5 to 3 hour range - giving us much more time to understand the characters. I do wonder if perhaps, in her infinite wisdom, Sofia Coppola chose to place the film at under 2 hours so that the audience would feel the encounter between Bob and Charlotte was as brief as they may have thought it was. In only a few fleeting moments of beautiful acting/directing/editing, in my opinion, we are left with one of the most powerful yet enigmatic films of the past 15-20 years. The resolution of the film raises numerous questions and answers very few, but the brilliant cinematography and scoring of the film place it on par with some of the most poignant moments I have seen in film history. I think that perhaps only Michael Mann is the only other modern/active director who could possibly create such an incredible final sequence for a film (judging by Heat, Collateral, and even Miami Vice - which I enjoyed immensely despite a poor critical reception).

This was by far the worst film I have ever seen in my entire life. The plot was absolutely ridiculous. The idea of making money off of poker was somehow sprung upon the audience with very little coherent reasoning or explanation ("Oh you're sort of good at poker based on the one hand that you won when we were drinking and playing strip-poker, so let's pay off hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of debts with our combined pseudo-talents! YAY!"). Absolutely everything about this film was awful. The script, the acting, and the photography were nothing short of laughable. I wouldn't normally post a comment at all on a film so terrible, but, somehow, this film managed to be so particularly horrendous that it was thought provoking in itself.