one of the worst films i have ever seen

Rating: 1/10 (10 September 2009)

with a cast of four Hollywood heavy weights, the director of 'the graduate' and the writer of 'alan partridge, i expected a lot from this film. the synopsis was interesting, relationships going awry, sounds great - what could put me off? well - just about everything.
my main quibble was the dialogue. it was so heavy and rang so untrue. nothing that any of the characters said was believable. and that meant that the acting, strangely enough with a cast that included jude law clive owen natalie portman and julia roberts, was stilted and dull. i have never seen jude law flounder so much with his lines before. I cringe even just thinking about how awful he was in this role.
many comments criticise the unpleasantness of the characters. there was no one to warm to. and i agree that i didn't warm to any of them, but i don't think that is particularly a fault. what is a fault is that this film was meant to give an insight into relationships in the raw but i was not convinced by any of the relationships. there was a lot of sex, and discussion about sex, which is fine, great, but there was no passion or love or connection between two people and relationships are not just about sex. i needed to believe that jude law felt incandescent love for julia, so much so that he would be prepared to throw his actual relationship away. instead i saw them both eye each other meaningfully and say clever things to each other without making any connection.
In fairness, i did think that clive owen was incredible. his anger and his aggression was powerful and intriguing, however, his part simply didn't go anywhere. again natalie portman's character appeared more interesting and certainly the theme of her naming herself pondered many interesting thoughts, but again this idea wasn't developed and became a curiosity rather than the profound insight that was intended.