Netflix sez...
2006 R 84 minutes Sparks fly at a wedding reception when a man (Aaron Eckhart) and woman (Helena Bonham Carter) with an ambiguous connection are reunited in this stylish romantic drama. As the layers of their past relationship gradually peel back, they rekindle a smoldering flame. Unable to contain their desire, they soon slip away to her hotel room -- but will passion give way to regret after the champagne wears off?
The first half-hour is devoted to the most stylishly and pointlessly stupid plot set-up and conversations I can ever remember seeing. It almost belongs in an English drawing room farce like "The Importance of Being Earnest" or "Charley's Aunt". The self-consciously artsy split screen is distracting, but not nearly distracting enough. The flashbacks to different actors are laughable in that these characters have changed so much physically between 21 and, what, 35?
Aaron Eckhart has the tougher role in that he has to show at least some maturation and regret, but Bonham-Carter is wasted here since her character neither grows nor matures nor even becomes more self-aware over time. The entire film exists in a curious moral universe where he is criticised for having a 23-year-old girlfriend by the very character whose toxicity serves to justify such an arrangement. Weird film in a bad way, and kind of pitifully sick. Maybe I just didn't get the joke. 1 out of 5 stars.
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