Fine as an acting exercise, though it bears little connection to reality

Rating: 6/10 (9 December 2015)

Patrick Marber adapted his own play about two not-so-loving couples in London who briefly exchange partners after romance sours at home: Julia Roberts is a photographer who marries dermatologist Clive Owen while flirting heavily with failed novelist Jude Law, who in turn is married to stripper/waitress Natalie Portman. Not even a superb director like Mike Nichols can get us over the implacable, impossible meet-cutes of the principals, nearly stalling the movie at the starting gate. However, the cast is smartly-attuned to their roles (if not wholly convincing), and the interwoven complications of these needling, guilty people are smoothly presented in an unobtrusively artistic manner (we are occasionally taken back and forth in time, yet Nichols steers the audience through the narrative like a master craftsman, without a hint of hesitancy). The dialogue is made up of unblinking and unblushing adult conversation, yet these immature characters (intentionally) do not behave like adults. They are helplessly selfish, rude and fickle, which sometimes shades the proceedings with a darkly comic grandeur that is unexpected and rewarding. **1/2 from ****