Overrated

Rating: Null/10 (21 June 2005)

I was looking forward to this film and found it to be nothing more than self-important guff. And very very dull indeed. So disappointed.
Plot was non-existent. Characters were not only unsympathetic - they had little or no personality whatsover. Direction was ponderous and slow in a way that was obviously supposed to be 'a bit like a French art house movie like what Kieslowski used to do' yet without the good bits of Kieslowski like engaging characters and whimsy. The sets all had this Elle Homes and gardens look of stale and mediocre tastefulness. And the music was either forgettable or Damien Rice moaning like a wet ex-boyfriend from hell drunkenly singing and sobbing at 4am "why did my girlfwiend leeeeve meeeeee".
And the dialogue - not profound but w*nky. W*nky middle-class navel gazing maxims mostly: "Telling the truth is what separates us from the animals." Yeah, those animals are always making fibs up, aren't they? I seem to recall it was a mongoose who wrote The Aeneid. Utter tosh!!!
Julia Roberts was the most dull boring self-absorbed woman in the world and we were supposed to believe she attracted these men into falling deliriously in love with her. She looked constipated all the time too. Natalie Portman was equally one dimensional and shallow - she was 'wacky' though cos she had dyed red hair and wore a skanky Boho Sienna miller coat. She had more potential but even so was given nothing to work with. But she cried once or twice and stripped so therefore she is a 'character'. I see.
Jude Law was even more dull and drippy than usual. Clive Owen was the only one who came across as being an actual person but even so, was forced to say the most trite lines, it nearly made me do a little bit of sick. Without him, the film would have been utter torture.
One funny scene about chatroom sex and Portman and Owen had some potential but other than that, i was just bored and indifferent to the 'relationship issues'. All deadly serious too. The language and 'smut' content was not shocking or compelling to me at all. So it didn't bother me that all the characters spoke in graphic ways. I object more to the sheer dullness and pretentiousness of the entire thing.
Pish!!! Avoid!!!!