If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or get my blog updates by email. Thanks for visiting!

Starring: Mark Webber, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Michelle Williams, Laura Linney, Ethan Hawke

Directed By: Ethan Hawke

Ethan Hawke seems to be misinterpreted throughout his career. His tale of turbulent love didn’t have many takers when it came out last year. But it is probably because of lot of cross referencing many of the critics employed to push this film to the grave. The film is laced with some really unbelievable performances from the principal cast. Mark Webber who plays William Harding who I last saw in Storytelling is still an outcast when it comes to his many talents.

The film was an adaptation of Ethan Hawke’s book of the same name. He really gets into the skin of his characters. He might come across as narcissistic because of traits of him in many of the characters. But this supplemented with some real beautiful challenges of the human condition. These characters are put through a lot in such a short time from probably 21 to 27. The distance between the two characters are not really clear even though we have a voice over of Harding giving premonitions of an end.

Nearly two hours long, with a really unorthodox narrative that really sucks you into the lives of these two lovers. Their times shared are probably just a week but it is surely one of the high points of the film. Sara who seems to have lost out on what happened in that week where they were lost in each others love handles. Just seems to walk into turmoil of negligence. They begin to harangue each other and bring out things about their characters that never appeared to them in the beginning. It is here were the seeds of maturity seem to shine through.

Sara tries to ward off William by saying things like she is not as interesting as she looks. But these reiterations of modesty seem to fall to deaf ears. William is still drawn to her like a door to its handler. The handler Sara pushes the screws of the door till there is nothing left to repair. William looses all sense of direction and becomes characters that he never thought were really in him. He finally does reach a state of saturation that inadvertently changes him forever. But this saturation seems to be misconstrued by many of the critics calling it dollops of self indulgence. Ethan Hawke still pushes the depression buttons of the character William when he meets his mother. It is here that we see the sad reality of why he exists the way he does.