tedious direction and acting

Rating: Null/10 (18 August 2011)

There is a serious problem with sluggish dialogue and transitions in this film. Not only is it too long, but most of the excessive length consists of dim, lingering shots of not much, and painfully awkward pauses between lines of wooden dialogue. We are given enough time to think for quite some time about what characters have said. Time and again, replies seemed so slow that I wondered if I'd accidentally hit pause. Nor was the wait worthwhile: the replies rarely added much.
It is also relentlessly morose — not "dark" or even "bleak," just depressing — which one might forgive if the shreds of comic relief weren't so trite and half-hearted.