A movie about all the ways a relationship can go wrong.

Rating: 9/10 (7 August 2005)

This one was of my favorite movies of 2004, and I felt compelled to write a review. First off, the acting is top notch by all the actors and normally I'm not a big Julia Roberts fan. This was one of the only movies I have seen her in where I didn't feel like I was watching Julia Roberts play herself. Jude Law, Natalie Portman and Clive Owen all are superb as well. The direction by Mike Nichols is awesome.
I see a lot of people seem to think that the message of this movie is "don't fall in love, you'll only get hurt" or calling the movie amoral. I think this movie actually has a very moral message. The message is that if you mistake lust or passion for love, you are going to have a really bad relationship. And that is a message this society needs to hear. The problem of falling in lust and thinking you are in love is rampant in our society. This movie is a warning about what can happen when you make that mistake.
As for the people that have said that it never feels like any of the characters care for each other, and deem that as bad acting. Well guess what, none of the character care for each other. No one in the movie loves anyone else. The only person in this movie that probably even comes close to loving someone is Natalie Portman's character; I think she may actually have feelings other than lust for Jude Law's character. Everyone else in the movie is just lusting after their current partners.
However, I will say this. Definitely not a movie I would bring my mother to see. There is no sex in the movie, just a lot of talk about it. Very graphic talk about it. If you can't handle graphic language, especially language using graphic sexual terms, then this is NOT the movie for you.