The previous reviewer's comments mysteriously do not allude to the terrific humor of this film. It is a clever, understated, totally deadpan comedy. If you like black, dry humor, this film is for you. At the same time it skewers the vapidly self-affirming culture of the wealthy, new age set. Slowly, Peter Weller and Judy Davis's characters' natures are purified in the furnace of self-destruction, until they discover their true selves -- mediocrity and greed, which lately pretended to be new age spirituality. A succession of fatuous gurus pushes them down the slope of destruction, until finally Samuel Jackson, in a fabulous cameo, teaches Peter Weller how to attain ultimate truth through techniques of visualization. By this point, the Davis-Weller characters have lost their jobs, their wealth, their "friends", their home, their failed business, and their relationship (did I mention the affairs?), and, perhaps, all illusions that there was anything at their core.
With the exception of one or two scenes, everything in this film is deliciously subtle and understated, but all the more wickedly funny for it. You might not realize how good it is at first. A second viewing will really help your appreciation of it.
If this film doesn't make you laugh, grasshopper, then perhaps you still do not know yourself.
With the exception of one or two scenes, everything in this film is deliciously subtle and understated, but all the more wickedly funny for it. You might not realize how good it is at first. A second viewing will really help your appreciation of it.
If this film doesn't make you laugh, grasshopper, then perhaps you still do not know yourself.