GoldmundX Couples with issues engaging in adultery, swapping partners, thus creating more issues. There's quite a few of these kind of movies. I never really get the point. But once in a while there's something to be found. But not in this one. These couples are supposively quite smart and according to the formula one of them is a writer (could have been an actor as well). And then they tend to make witty remarks. But not really. It's all just pretentious nothing. I greatly disliked this movie. It's embarrassingly awkward. It's not just that none of the characters are likable, none of them seems to have any backbone or heart, but they are really just hollow random inconsistent characters. Wandering bags of bones, blood and genitals. Which makes it impossible to care about what happens to them, what mess they create for themselves. Whatever. The dialogues and interactions between the 'characters' are so random, vague, illogical, pretentious and inconsistent, it leaves you cringing throughout the whole movie. Apparently Naomi Watts made this movie shortly after 21 Grams. I loved her in that movie. That was good drama,with believable characters. It's a shame to see her talent being wasted in a travesty of a movie like this. But no rain, no shine. This movie is rain for sure. Acid rain.

Chrysanthepop John Curran presents a very unsettling view on fragile relationships. At the centre of the story there are two married couples and from their interactions one can easily conclude that there was once a lot of love within the couples and a strong friendship between them and now, well in the case of Hank and Edith, the love is vanishing into thin air. Edith still yearns for Hank's love but Hank is too self-absorbed in his self-perceived failure and careless about his wife's infidelity. Terry still deeply loves Jack who is going through a mid-life crisis (like Hank) and finds comfort, both sexual and emotional, with Edith. At the center of their relationships are the children of the respective couples who are the most vulnerable ones. The film is a shocking portrayal of relationships and friendships that have reached a stage where indifference, obligation, guilt, loneliness and despair take over. Curran also adds some doses of humour that is subtle and welcoming (at the same time non-intrusive).The cinematography is fantastic and editing is wonderful. I especially liked how the camera jumps from one character to another, showing what they are going through, during a constant time period. The score contributes to the gloominess but in a non-intrusive and non-melodramatic way. It is rather gentle and flowing smoothly.'We Don't Live Here Anymore' showcases four exceptional performances. Ruffalo is both hateful and sympathetic as Jack. The remarkable Laura Dern is explosive and fiery as Terry. Her Terry is the strongest of the four and Dern is both gripping and haunting. Both Ruffalo and Dern benefit from well-defined roles (but even otherwise they are great actors as has been evident in their other movies) though there was the risk that had the roles been played by lesser actors, they could have easily become caricatures. However, the characters Hank and Edith depend more on the actor's performances. Naomi Watts shows immense depth through a wonderfully restrained performance while Peter Krause brilliantly downplays and brings a rawness to his part and his facial expressions speak volumes.'We Don't Live Here Anymore' is certainly not a positive look at relationships. The friendship between the couple is strong and there is an understanding between them that shows that they care for each other. Notice in the later scene when Dern's Terry tries to comfort Watts's Edith and the chats between Hank and Jack are proof enough. Even though the words aren't said, they only know each other too well and maybe it is respect that is losing its hold and probably friendship will too. Curran's film tells a meaningful raw story that is honest, brutal, daring and unsympathetic to its characters.

ryknight My expectations were probably too high, despite being wary of the second adaptation of one of my favorite authors. I didn't really care for IN THE BEDROOM because it didn't telegraph all the nuance of emotion found in Dubus' perfect, concise short fiction. Looks like it didn't work this time either.The credits tell us this film is based on both novellas "We Don't Live Here Anymore" and "Adultery" yet it only incorporates the last paragraph of the latter. Without the rest of those pages, this turnaround for Edith (Naomi Watts)--which the filmmakers plop into the last three minutes after spending the majority of the previous 99 minutes in her lover Jack's POV--doesn't have its desired denouement effect on an audience: we just think Edith has given up, not made a healthy choice to better her life and grow up. The filmmakers made a similar misstep in their handling of Jack's final choice. In the end of the eponymous novella, our narrator Jack (played by Mark Ruffalo in the film) tells us his spirit is dying in a marriage going nowhere even though like Tolstoy's Ivan Ivanovitch--which is briefly referenced in both works--he appears to have found the light; yet in the film, we witness a man ultimately choosing family because it's the right thing to do--a completely different emotional journey.I really like all four leads but I just found myself wanting more from each of them. Maybe that way we could have seen more of Dubus' original intentions and character arcs with his novellas. In the stories, the characters are three dimensional and you can forgive their shortcomings because of it. In this film, everybody comes off selfish: you can't root for any of them. On the page we witness redemption, even in Jack's selfish choice to "sacrifice" his future happiness. On screen we see an actor playing a man who just wants people to be happy--and he thinks he can be if he gives up his affair.At least the actors were all swinging for the fences. Peter Krause gets the least screen time but he was the best of the leads and the closest to the character Dubus created. I hope he escapes the shadow of HBO because I've thought he's a special actor ever since I was one of the ten people to tune in to SPORTS NIGHT on a regular basis. Laura Dern is given a meaty role in Terry, Jack's jilted wife, but she just plays every scene like Nicole Kidman in EYES WIDE SHUT, only not as good. Terry was created well before Kubrick made that last film but it's hard to get Kidman's panty-clad lustful confession out of your head watching Dern act mad and yell not only because they're similar scenes but because Kidman is still stunning and Dern looks tired. I know, superficial, but that's what I thought. On the other hand, Naomi Watts is very sexy and gives it her all but she's just a sketch of a hurt person, not a well rounded or believably motivated character. I didn't feel we learned all that much from her speech in the hotel or that scene of her crying--they seemed like plot devices the filmmakers had to use to justify their choices with the last act. The last act doesn't work because of that final scene with Edith and also because of what I said about Jack's choice. Ruffalo is very good, but he's playing a different Jack than the Jack on Dubus' pages.Bottom line: read the novellas. Especially "Finding A Girl In America", it's my favorite. All three of the novellas were published in a book under the title of the film and it has a great introduction from Dubus' son, Andre Dubus III, who wrote HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG (also manhandled on screen). It was the essay by the screenwriter that made me give the movie a shot but I don't think the film works as well as it could have. They should have either made it just that first story or actually explored the whole series of novellas for a movie that could have become a classic to stand alongside something like Bergman's SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE. Maybe you should just rent that.

transmitter Four great actors are hampered by a script that heads towards hell but leads nowhere. Jack and Terry (Ruffalo and Dern) and Hank and Edith (Krause and Watts) are two estranged marriages. Jack and Hank are both struggling writers teaching at the local university. Terry is the ignored mother and Edith is the unappreciated youthful spouse. Jack and Edith begin a steamy affair, and Terry and Hank suspect. Hank, always a bit on edge, contemplating the worse, acts on his anger or competitiveness and Terry succumbs, half out of contempt and half as a way to dull the misery. The movie succeeds when it blends the mixed emotions of hurt and anger and love and lust and desire and bitterness. It lags when it tries to put too much meaning and dialog behind actions and emotions and moments that speak for themselves.