should be wonderful -- but it's precious and airless

Rating: 2/10 (8 April 2007)

What a wonderful cast wasted on a concept that should have been inventive and wonderful but becomes only a circle of self-consciousness conceits. Every single actor is so good you could watch them with the sound off -- Will Ferrell with Maggie Gyllenhaal are a revelation -- but too many of the conversations are Will Ferrell endlessly playing dumb for us so that the other characters tease out the profundity.....Also there are some annoying little visual frills -- to make us feel like Harold lives in computer-aided design program...? I love the idea of a movie about literature, but this one never breathes any life into its ideas. A much more satisfying film is Adaptation which is just as self-conscious but comes to odd, enchanting, uncomfortable -- and exhilarating-- life.