Surprising quality

Rating: 10/10 (11 January 2005)

While Julia Roberts is not known for choosing deep, dramatic projects, she gave an impressive performance here. Natalie Portman is not my favorite, either, but I adored her in this. Her charm read better in this film than in previous work. Jude Law and Clive Owen are personal favorites who did not disappoint. This was the most realistic, adult movie I've seen in some time. Some will be turned off by the talky, stage quality of the film, but as an actor I was engrossed by the intellectual nudity that was present in place of graphic sex scenes (with a couple scenes excepted). It's nice to finally hear some intelligent, realistic dialog with a plot to match. While terribly depressing, it reflects some of the more difficult, unexplored questions about love and doesn't attempt to give definite answers to them. A fine piece of theater.