great acting, but such a boring story

Rating: 6/10 (19 March 2005)

It's really intriguing for me to see such an amazing pool of actors gathering to do a film based on such a booooooooring story. As I understand, the script is based on one of these London or New York theater plays dealing with modern relationships. The traditional triangle is here a square and the four characters located in modern London are playing for the about 100 minutes a game of true and deceived love and treason. The problem is that all the atmosphere is so dry and detached from reality. What may be working on stage is not transformed at all into good cinema. I could not get rid of the feeling of filmed theater for the duration of the whole movie, and I have different expectations from a theater play than from a cinema piece of art. What a pity to see the splendid acts of Clive Owen and Natalie Portman spoiled on such thin premises. Jude Law and Julia Roberrts are also quite good, but this film is yet another proof that great acting alone does not make a great movie. 6 out of 10 on my personal scale.