Remarkable delight

Rating: 10/10 (3 October 2009)

At 15 , I failed to understand "Crash" and gave Ballard away. After all, he seemed to have given away his original science fiction. But my wife, despite her deafness, wants to watch a late TV screening of " ...... a wonderful book. Why haven't you read it?". Three hours later, I get to thank her for making me watch one of the great movies. Other comments list the exceptional qualities of the film, but most fail to give due credit to a fabulous script. Tom Stoppard has produced many masterworks and this is up with his best; at once understated AND memorable. So when you watch it, being swept along by the remarkable acting, the stunning visuals, the haunting themes, the moral ambiguities.... take in also the brilliance of a script that takes you through a "war" film without a single cliché. Thats all. This movie might serve to make me start again watching the things.... after 35 years of thinking that "film of artistic merit" is oxymoronic..... I was wrong about this one and probably about others.