Reviews

Here are some films which have Oscar-contender written all the way through them like a stick of rock. This version of John Le Carré's 2001 novel is conceived on a grand, almost operatic scale with fervent and passionate performances from actors who come the new year may need shopping trolleys for the all the statuettes. Like The English Patient, there's a fair bit of grandstanding, but this film more than carries it off. Its shrewd producer, Simon Channing-Williams, had the inspired idea of hiring the Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles to direct, and Meirelles has brought to this conspiracy-thriller-cum-love-story the unceasing energy and attack that characterised his sensational debut film City of God.

There is certainly none of the torpid melancholy and disillusion that tend to creep into screen versions of Le Carré - a reflex, perhaps, of his status as the most literary of spy novelists, whose works are sometimes thought of with a kind of Brideshead oboe playing regretfully somewhere in the background. Instead, Meirelles gives us something gutsier and less English. We get rage, restless curiosity, agonised self-reproach and whole landscapes lit up with lightning flashes of paranoia. The performances from Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz are excellent, perhaps the very best of their careers, and there is first-rate support, particularly from Bill Nighy as the Mephistophelean mandarin from the Foreign Office.

The Constant Gardener is a love story told in retrospect. Fiennes is Justin, a shy, introspective junior diplomat who falls in love with Tess (Weisz), a beautiful and fiery political activist. They marry and during a difficult posting to Kenya, Justin is informed that Tess has been killed while on her fact-finding trip into remote territory with an aid worker. He will not rest until he finds the truth about Tess's murder, which turns out to be a queasy conspiracy involving the exploitation of HIV-positive Africans, going up to the top of the British establishment. More importantly perhaps even than this, Justin uncovers painful secrets about his marriage, involving a messy and very human renegotiation of friendship with his colleague Sandy: another very good performance from Danny Huston, though perhaps a little hobbled by having to do an English accent. These disclosures result in his growing to admire his late wife even more passionately than before, as someone with humanity and idealism that, though flawed, exceeded his own. Posthumously, he falls in love with her again: his grief is transformed and charged with a visionary insight into Tess's real life.

The film is about betrayal, personal and political, but it provides a new perspective on EM Forster's remark about whether to betray one's friend or one's country. This is about being betrayed by one's country and one's friend; the two types of treason are conflated, and Justin finds himself in the midst of a Greeneian purgatory as he finds out more and more about what has been happening behind his back. The spiritual agony is compounded when Justin's detective work takes him to Germany and then to London, where Bill Nighy's sinister mandarin takes him to luncheon at his St James's Club. The Brazilian Meirelles is clearly a stranger to this habitat and his anthropological detachment enables him to bring out the essential strangeness and concealed brutality of its rituals.

There is a terrific pulse of energy in this film, a voltage which drives it over two hours. It is not just an intricate, despairing meditation on the shabby compromises involved in maintaining Britain's interests and waning foreign prestige. There is real anger here, and a real sense that it is worthwhile striking back against wrongdoing. Its global sweep is exhilarating and boldly cinematic, while also pointing up Justin's desolate loneliness. The Constant Gardener is a romance that packs a punch to equal The English Patient of 20 years ago.

Writer Stephen Gaghan ("Traffic", "The Alamo") created the fictional script for "Syriana" based on the non-fiction book "See No Evil" by Robert Baer. The interesting thing about Mr. Gaghan's script, though, isn't that its labyrinthine plot of conspiring Emirs, lawyers and CIA agents plotting to control the world's oil supply is so unbelievable. The most troublesome part of "Syriana" is that the movie is, in fact, so easy to believe.

"Syriana" has one of those interweaving plots that Robert Altman does so effortlessly. But where Mr. Altman's films seem to drift with ease from one subplot to another, "Syriana" is so ridiculously complex that the audience, at first straining to keep track of the characters and settings, eventually must give in and let the film run its course.

It's a shame because "Syriana" has a lot to say, and Mr. Gaghan has obviously done his homework. The film ostensibly revolves around an impending merger between two of the world's largest oil companies and the men assigned to investigate it and/or ensure that it takes place. To go into any more detail would be futile since "Syriana" not only invites but requires additional viewings to keep it all straight.

The huge ensemble cast is uniformly terrific. In particular Jeffrey Wright, always a strong presence, does some of his best work here as a lawyer slowly realizing the futility of his assignment. George Clooney, proudly over-weight and ruffled as a seen-it-all CIA operative, makes good use of his gift for understatement. Alexander Siddig, famously of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" does some heretofore unseen solid work as the man who would be Emir. Matt Damon and Amanda Peet as a husband and wife caught up in the dollars and senselessness of it all add some much-needed humanity to the film, which runs the risk of becoming a series of preachy board meetings. And, of course, Christopher Plummer is perfectly commanding as the head of Mr. Wright's law firm.

Mr. Gaghan steps behind the camera as the film's director and he has obviously learned some tricks from "Traffic" director Steven Soderbergh. The film's settings, particularly in Lebanon and the oil fields of the Persian Gulf, have the requisite feeling of immediacy. And the film's blistering pace makes its two-plus hour running time fly by.

The film never reaches the dizzying gamesmanship of Mr. Altman's films or the movie "Crash", however. Unlike those films, "Syriana", like "Traffic", contains many subplots which serve one master story, rather than multiple subplots around the same theme. Therefore, though the film does eventually pay off, it doesn't tie together in one of those beautiful the-whole-is-greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts moments. There's a great monologue by a character named Danny Dalton (a pitch-perfect Tim Blake Nelson) about corruption which should have been the defining moment of everything in the film but instead just becomes another in a series of good moments which loosely hang together. It's a testament to Mr. Gaghan's script that - even without thoroughly understanding the film - you're able to get the gist of it.

Capote tells two stories, presenting both without hiccups. The first is an exposé of how the title author's In Cold Blood was written. The second shows the emotional and psychic dissolution of the man who starts out the film as a brilliant eccentric and finishes it as a basket case.

In Cold Blood made Truman Capote a household name, and led to him being ranked as one of the greatest American writers. It also destroyed him. He would never complete another book and, less than 20 years after finishing In Cold Blood, he would die of a drug overdose. Great authors often live unhappy lives. After his experiences putting together his legacy work, Capote's became almost unbearable. Bennett Miller's motion picture shows how obsession and self-absorption developed from personality traits into personal demons.

Capote opens in 1959. The title character (Philip Seymour Hoffman), tired of writing fiction, has decided to investigate four Kanas murders as a possible subject for a non-fiction article in the New Yorker magazine. With him, he takes his good friend, Nelle Harper Lee (Catherine Keener), who has recently completed her manuscript for To Kill a Mockingbird. The local police chief (Chris Cooper) offers reluctant cooperation. After the killers - Perry Smith (Clifton Collins Jr.) and Richard Hickock (Mark Pellegrino) - are captured, Capote's interviews with Perry result in a twisted form of bonding and co-dependency. There is manipulation and empathy on both sides. At one point, Truman remarks, "It's as if Perry and I grew up in the same house. One day, I went out the front door and he went out the back." Eventually, with the appeals process prolonging the execution of the death penalty, Truman reaches the point where he wants Perry to be hanged so this nightmarish phase of his life can reach closure. "All I want to do is write the ending, and there's no end in sight," he laments.

One cannot write about this film without tossing superlatives in the direction of Philip Seymour Hoffman, whose performance will earn him an Oscar nomination. Hoffman doesn't merely imitate Capote. He inhabits him with an intensity that demands acknowledgement from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Catherine Keener, Chris Cooper, and Clifton Collins Jr. offer support, but this is Hoffman's movie from start to finish. Underrated for most of his career, this role will allow him to take his turn in the spotlight.

Capote is a deep movie with rich veins to mine. The lead character is not likeable. He is a user who exploits his relationship with Perry for personal gain. At the beginning, he doesn't know what it will ultimately cost him. As the movie develops, we see the complex love-and-hate association with Perry and how this results in the slow erosion of Capote's personality. The brilliance of Bennett's movie is that it concentrates on the characters and their interaction and never becomes a mouthpiece for one side or the other with respect to the death penalty. It would have been easy to turn Capote into a polemic, but Bennett resists the urge.

Although I had a stronger connection with Capote on an intellectual level than on an emotional level (I never came close to shedding a tear), the experience stayed with me for some time. That's unusual for something I see for the first time in the midst of a film festival. (In this case, Toronto.) Normally, movies falling into a mid-day slot leave a minimal aftertaste before being washed away by the next feature, but not this one.

In Ang Lee's "Sense and Sensibility," the characters never stopped talking. In his new film, "Brokeback Mountain," they rarely start. Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) is a ranch hand who is hired, along with sometime Texas rodeo rider Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal), for a summer job herding sheep on Wyoming's Brokeback Mountain. They've never met before, and for a while, they communicate - or at least Ennis does - mostly through grunts and mumbles.

Their closeness is that of the classic Westerner's - what is not spoken is more eloquent than that which is. But then the film takes a startling turn. On a cold night, Ennis and Jack lie together for warmth and then, suddenly, have sex.

In most Westerns, the devotion between cowboys is depicted as deeper and more spiritually sustaining than the love between a man and a woman. "Brokeback Mountain," which screenwriters Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana expertly expanded from the celebrated 1997 short story by Annie Proulx, makes explicit the sexual undercurrent that, rightly or wrongly, not a few critics have at times detected in the intense masculine bonds of these strong, silent types.

In this sense, as well as in the graphic nature of some of the sex scenes, "Brokeback Mountain" is a zeitgeist-capturing moment for Hollywood. But, ultimately, its timing may well be a matter for the sociologists. As, too, will be the response from the general audience, which inevitably, and understandably, will be sharply divided. After all, nothing like this film has ever really been seen before from a major movie company. I'm referring not only to the film's sexual content here. What is truly distinctive about "Brokeback Mountain" is that it brings to life a love story that, after all these years of love stories, is essentially new to mainstream movies, and it does so without special pleading or sentimentality.

Ennis and Jack come down off the mountain that summer not knowing if they will ever see each other again. They barely acknowledge what went on between them, and no future plans are made. But as Jack drives off, Ennis throws up. He can't comprehend the chasm that has opened up inside him.

For the next 20 years, from the early 1960s to the late '70s, Ennis and Jack, both of whom become husbands and fathers, hook up for brief, intense getaways. Jack wants to leave his family for Ennis, who can only respond by saying, "If you can't fix it, you gotta stand it."

He is the more emotionally armored of the two, and for much of the movie he is unable to acknowledge his passion for Jack. As his marriage to a good woman (the remarkable Michelle Williams) breaks up, his violent outbursts, which are really a form of self-abasement, become the only way he can act out his despair and bewilderment. Ang Lee is a remarkable humanist. He shows us not only the emotional damage that Jack and Ennis undergo but also the toll that is taken on their wives and children. No one is a villain, and no one is spared from sorrow.

Gyllenhaal has a rare ability to bring out the youthful ardor in his characters without seeming callow. It is a gift that stands him in good stead because we must believe that the smitten Jack, over a period of two decades, is capable of sustaining a deepening passion. Ledger does something even more difficult: He gives us a full-scale portrait of a man who is so imprisoned by tradition and inhibition that he can never break out. Ledger's underplaying is a sign of grace. It is an acknowledgment that, for some men, there is pain too deep for words.

Ennis, we are made to believe, is the Old West while Jack, who imagines they can have a life together, is a precursor of the New West. But both are in the wrong place at the wrong time. "Brokeback Mountain" is a tragedy because these men have found something that many people, of whatever sexual persuasion, never find - true love. And they can't do anything about it.

Haggis was nominated for an Oscar this year for writing Million Dollar Baby, but he considers EZ Streets - one of the best, if short-lived, TV crime shows ever - his greatest achievement. So, if you're Haggis, you've written your share of gun scenes, and you're wealthy. One night, as you're leaving your local video store with your wife, two thieves steal your Porsche at gunpoint. This happened in the 1990s, and Haggis still hasn't gotten over it. It could've hardened his heart. Instead, he wondered about the lives of those young men and about larger issues of crime, intolerance, social isolation, racial stereotyping, intertwined fates and the frustrated anger that simmers beneath the surface in every large city. Then he sat down to write. Crash, the film that resulted, isn't the indulgent piece of therapy you might expect. It's an ambitious and often wonderful movie, an expansive look at urban life - the fractious, noisy whole of it - filled with witty, biting and insightful writing. Not only that, but it's also well-acted, with an all-star cast, and Haggis directs with fluidity and flare. All of these terrific parts do not, however, add up to a great movie.

"You know this story," Igor says at the beginning of "Victor Frankenstein," and, boy, do we ever. The zapping Tesla coils, the barking-mad doctor, the moldering thing stirring to life on the platform under the storm - Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" has long since become part of our cultural and cinematic DNA. Is there any way to defibrillate this story back to life?

Director Paul McGuigan ("Wicker Park") and screenwriter Max Landis (son of "Animal House" director John) have a novel approach: They make Igor the hero. Yes, that's the former Harry Potter, Daniel Radcliffe, as the cringing circus hunchback who just happens to be a skilled, self-taught surgeon and whose talents are recognized by the passing Victor Frankenstein (James McAvoy), who just happens to be needing a partner for his experiments in re-animating dead flesh. Within minutes of meeting Igor, the good doctor has literally straightened him out. To quote a knowledgeable source: Hump? What hump?"Victor Frankenstein" goes uphill from there for a bit before plummeting downhill fast.

He years come and go; the seasons rise and fall; and trainee wizards Harry, Ron and Hermione have grown into loping teenagerhood, along with their actors, Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson. It's a weird experience for all of us getting older with them in real time. And here is their fourth adventure, The Goblet of Fire, in which, the posters promise us, dark and difficult times lie ahead. Could that subdued second adjective be hinting at metaphors for adolescent upheaval? If so, it is an adolescence so far free of acne, anti-authority attitudes and tattoos - except the one painfully imposed upon our young hero by the evil Voldemort. Harry is however feeling the painful stirrings of romance, and Hermione is increasingly exasperated that the two useless, lumbering boys she's hanging around with are failing to understand or appreciate her on any level other than chum.

Everyone returns, including the brother and dead sister of the beloved Professor Dumbledore, who live in an oil painting, and even the ghost of Dumbledore himself, played once again by Michael Gambon. Hogwarts is now in the malevolent hands of the sinister Severus Snape (hissing, sniveling Alan Rickman), who is holding students and staff hostage as they wait for Harry to rescue them. The walls and platforms that hold up Hogwarts crumble and collapse like Tinker Toys in a masterpiece of destruction, turning the school of magic into the world's most colossal rubbish heap. A humongous man-eating snake with fangs that strike the audience in 3-D almost devours Hermione, while Ron narrowly escapes a cauldron of flames on a broomstick. With Hogwarts gone and almost every member of the cast killed off by Voldemort, there could obviously never be another installment. But there's still time for tender-hearted Professor Minerva McGonagell (Maggie Smith) to save the day with a spell she's been waiting for years to try. There is even a flashback that explains the sinister role Snape played in Harry's life story that I found unexpectedly touching. The only thing left to do to bring this saga to a heart-stopping conclusion is for Harry to enter the forbidden forest of death like a true hero and face his destiny with Voldemort, played one last time by the hatchet-faced Ralph Fiennes, who actually shows his human side for the first time. Frankly, I'm sorry to see him go.

None of it makes one lick of sense and a lot of the dialogue is pure jabberwocky, decipherable only by those who know the books by heart. This includes billions of rabid fans, so I don't think anyone is even slightly worried that a little formality like incoherence will affect the box office. The movie never wore out my patience like Part 1 did, because the awesome effects take over where the plot used to be, and although this is the end, my guess is that it will fire the imagination for years to come. What fun to feel like a kid again. I had a marvelous time.

In this umpteenth variation on the James boys' myth, corrupt businessmen blow up the James farm and kill their mama, then blow up their young friends' farms, reducing Jesse, Frank (Gabriel Macht) and the gang (co- led by Scott Caan) to a band of renegade bank robbers. This plot leaves ample room for viewers to sweat the small stuff, like whether Trevor Nunn's score is more Marines ad or deodorant commercial. Deodorant wasn't around in the 19th century, but neither was Moby, whose country-fried and sampled electro-ballad "Find My Baby" plays over the opening titles.

"Winter's Tale" tells the story of a thief, a consumptive heiress, and a sentient magical white horse, but, really, it is the story of New York City in Helprin's imagination, a place like the one in reality but with some strange alterations. The Hudson freezes solid for miles, and people set up tent cities along the ice. There is a frozen magical town up-river where time takes on strange qualities. There is a whirling mysterious white cloud-wall that surrounds the island of Manhattan, a cloud-wall that everyone accepts to such a degree that no one notices it anymore. What is the cloud-wall? What does it signify? The wall is gone in Goldsman's version. In the book, it is the whole point-the reason for everything. Goldsman has missed the point of the book entirely.

One leaves the novel reluctantly. One leaves the film with great relief that it is over.

By the title, you might expect a movie exploring young prostitutes ' social and psychological conditions (adolescent, etc.). But that's not the documentary's thrust. Instead, while documenting Indian females, photographer Zana Briski starts to become emotionally attached to the kids of her topics living in Calcutta's red light district.The kids (10-14 years of age) are actually the topics in this film.Sons and daughters of prositutes, though, mostly living in poverty, ridicule, scorn, this documentary depicts a kid spirit that is still shimmering with some resilience. For them, Zana organizes a photography class, arming them with a short camera each.They're wandering away, shooting the world they understand: a little brother crying, family lounging, dirty dishes, a street person, a wall of textured stuff.

Throughout the manufacturing, the filmmakers weave these pictures shot by the children artfully, tactfully and movingly. In fact, the pictures are not merely supplementary material- they become the story's cornerstone.Ultimately, Zana becomes so attached that she seeks to enroll a lot of children in appropriate boarding schools to save them from their almost definitely dark future.

This image is one of hope and empathy in an unusually shady aspect of mankind. More than once it choked me.

Here are likewise excellent moments of fun at the genre conventions- especially the supervillains ' tendency to indulge in verbosity ("You dumb dog, you've got me monologuing!"), and the James Bond gags and other film references are smart enough. But in its last act, the film loses its comedic thrust and ends up being the very thing that makes it sport otherwise.And that's too bad because The Incredibles is fairly awesome when it's on its game.

Sideways is smashing, very funny and very sad. The tale is straightforward: wine-loving want tobe author Miles (Paul Giamatti) is taking unsuccessful actor Jack (Thomas Haden Church) to celebrate the upcoming marriage of his ancient friend on a week-long tour of the California wine area. But while Miles likes to relax, drink and play golf, before settling down, Jack is determined to lay down one last time.Their adventures create friendship, love and regret a charming, moving comedy.

This is reflected in the film's exquisite look. It represents the cinematic looks of the three centuries in which the tale takes place, and is a wonderful recreation of Hollywood's golden ages and aviation, all glamorous night clubs, wonderful clothes, lovely houses and sleek Art Deco-inspired aeroplanes.In the period, there is a sense of total immersion, and just how exciting and elegant this was a time. The performers mix perfectly into this globe. DiCaprio is convincing as Hughes appears in nearly every scene, maintaining our empathy even when in his screening room pissing into milk bottles, but Cate Banchett acts off the screen.Actually, she doesn't look like Kate Hepburn, but her mannerisms and vocal performance are so spot on that I forgot I didn't watch the true lady. A cast which comprises Alec Baldwin, Alan Alda, John C. Reilly, Jude Law, Ian Holm, and Kate Beckinsale supports them ably.

The Aviator is ideal for those boring afternoons in January when there's nothing on television and you're tired of sales. Empty your bladder, pick up some popcorn and sink into it.

Before I saw the good man's biopic of Taylor Hackford, my paltry Ray Charles experience was united to his cheerful rendition of' Shake Your Tail Feather' in the all-together brilliant The Blues Brothers. To be frank, I believed I had as many blind, African-American, child-prodigy musical geniuses as I required as a rather passionate Stevie Wonder fan, thank you so much.Poor Ray has, as such, only ever flickered in the background of my consciousness, and never really had the opportunity to take center stage.

That's the message from this movie. As Unforgiven was about guilt and regret, Million Dollar Baby zeroes in on the brutal, primal appeal of "The Sweet Science." Perhaps we've seen too many versions of poor men using the deadly sport as their only way to "be someone," as Brando put it in On the Waterfront. Give a woman that dream and you bring home the risk, and show why she's willing to take it.Respect, only a different type of love. And that search for regard is what makes flirting with greatness this strong boxing drama.

The tone is fast and funny, with a modern "Risky Business" or "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" vibe, but there's an additional layer that stems from the violence of the neighborhood. The stakes are very real for kids like Malcolm, living hand-to-mouth and attending an underfunded school with only one shot at getting out. It's no wonder some top African-American celebs (Sean Combs, Pharrell Williams) have lent support as exec producers of the film. But unfortunately many scenes seriously overstay their welcome, and don't land the intended laughs. At times the film is just dopey, though there's enough in the mix that's addictive

In this Spidey kitchen, too many cooks? You would have thought. But even in this thrill-a-minute whirlwind, the soul of this iconic superhero- both ancient and new - goes through. That's because filmmakers never forget to make Miles and his growing pains care for us, or what we'd do if we'd be in his own.Who would have believed that animation could transform into something new, funny, fierce and revolutionary a whole army of interdimensional webslingers? Spider-Man: Not only is Spider-Man's coolest epic ever in the Spider-Verse, it's one of the year's best films. What do you expect?

A nice tale, though poorly performed, of real occurrences. In many of the scenes where such graphics were needed, the computer graphics lacked decent quality and birds flying around the abandoned men were supposed to be somewhat amateur in the middle of the ocean.

In the final third, "Video Games: The Movie" effectively turns it around as Snead lastly enables some severe debate of the industry's present state. I think the history of video games was too nostalgic for him to avoid, but his film ultimately loses the rush of sugar in the present and the future.The film enters the process behind masterpieces like "The Last of Us," debating the gamer's significance of authorship and how many moving parts to create a great game have to click in location. Personally, I believe we're in an incredible moment for video games and they're only going to become a deeper, more rewarding component of our entertainment culture.But I was thinking that before the film as well.

Based on Stephen King's brief tale, Stand By Me follows four teenage friends (Wil Wheaton's Gordie, River Phoenix's Chris, Corey Feldman's Teddy, and Jerry O'Connell's Vern) as they embark on a trip to discover a dead body - with the film later (and mainly) detailing their numerous adventures along the manner.It's an extremely simple premise that Rob Reiner uses to a positive effect for the most part, as the filmmaker does a superb job of establishing both the small town atmosphere of the film and the friendship between the boys - with the personable, thoroughly engaging work of the four stars perpetuating the consistently affable vibe of the film in terms of the latter.There is little doubt, however, that the decidedly deliberate sensitivities of Reiner, coupled with the episodic bent of the script of Raynold Gideon and Bruce A. Evans, ensure that the first half of the film is not quite as electrifying as one might have hoped, as it is clear that some sequences are ultimately far better off than others.With the boys ' attempts to cross the railway bridge securely within the opening hour of the film, surely standing as a highlight. The palpable chemistry among the four children, in particular the rock-solid friendship between the respective personalities of Wheaton and Phoenix, plays an instrumental part in maintaining things interesting even through the rocker parts of the narrative.It plays an instrumental part in maintaining stuff interesting even through the rocker parts of the narrative, and it should be noted that the film boasts an increasingly fascinating feeling as it passes into its tense and amazingly touching third act - which efficiently cement Stand By Me's location as a timeless coming-of-age drama.

Here again, the two Corey's hmmm strange plot, nothing initial but plenty of holes that leave you wondering what's really going on on earth. There's no adequate explanation as to how and why the body / mind change is going to happen and then everything becomes nothing at the end?? huh?Poor performances from all really, there may be many of the bigger names just to cash in on being with the younger stars, showing that they're still hip hehe Can't advise unless you enjoy the two Coreys.

A vital piece of genuine American may be missing from Paris, Texas, but it still evokes an America that most Americans yearn to look on. An America as thorny and carnivorous as a hawk heel, as raw and smug as a mural in the center of the city, and as sweetly enigmatic as a vacant lot that can not exist.

Unfaithfully Yours follows composer Claude Eastman (Dudley Moore) on the basis of the 1948 Preston Sturges movie as he becomes confident that his youthful wife (Nastassja Kinski's Daniella) is having an affair with a hunky singer (Armand Assante's Max) - with the story finally detailing Claude's attempts to plot a complex vengeance.It's a good premise that director Howard Zieff uses to watch (if mostly forgettable) impact, as the filmmaker, working from a script by Valerie Curtin, Barry Levinson, and Robert Klane, provides a slow-moving comedy that eventually benefits significantly from the above-average attempts of its multiple actors - with Moore's typically winning turn matching his two costars.There is also little doubt that the opening hour of Unfaithfully Yours contains a number of admittedly hilarious pieces of comedy that contribute heavily to the affable atmosphere, although it should be noted that the excessively slapsticky third act is not quite capable of making the knee-slapping impact that Zieff certainly intended.- Which confirms the location of the picture as a rather small Moore car.