Pretty good, but...

Rating: 7/10 (15 February 2000)

Frankly speaking, I appreciated the movie quite a lot, but I don't understand all the hype about it. It is good, but not so extraordinary.
It reminded of French movies such as 'Une liaison pornographique', or 'Chacun cherche son chat'. I am also tempted to compare it with 'Short cuts', from Robert Altman, or 'Happiness' (Tod Solontz), not for the same reasons of course. The formers because of the characters' psychological complexity' (no good/evil divide here), which are ordinary people with human feelings and reactions, not caricatural heroes. One of the great plus of the movie is indeed to succeed in combining these characters with a satirical portrait of modern life, and the pressure it puts on individuals: the imperative to be a winner, to look handsome and attractive and not ordinary. It stresses quite well this new kind of conformism which oblige people to become 'unordinary individuals'.