SUMMER IN FEBRUARY

Based on a novel that was based on a true story about love and lust amongst some about-to-be famous artists in Edwardian Britain this pretty period costume drama is the most tedious of affairs. Essentially the tale of A J Munnings, who would go on to not only become Britain's most famous painter of horses but also the President of The Royal Academy.  As a young man he was evidently a loud-mouthed hedonist who bedded so many woman but still insisted on marrying one of them whilst maintaining his coterie quite indiscreetly.

His chosen bride was Florence Carter-Wood who was so infatuated with AJ as an artist that she willingly refused the attentions of another suitor Gilbert Evans who was really in love with her.  The marriage was doomed before it started and Florence even tried to poison herself before the Wedding Reception was over.  A struggling artist in her own right, she was perpetually depressed and frustrated and even when she eventually sought refuge in Gilbert's arms it was too little and too late.

For a story that was meant to be about love and lust, it was completely devoid of any sign of passion at all. Director Christopher Menaul, in his feature film debut. had gathered together a handful of some very talented actors but even they couldn't salvage much from this very dull script. They include Downton Abbey's Dan Stevens who must have thought he was playing it safe with his first leap to the big screen by playing yet another 'nice chap'. And then there was Dominic Cooper who seemed to think that he could make his portrayal of A.J. more interesting by shouting a lot! 

The single redeeming feature of this very lame piece was the gorgeous setting.  The artists colony was based in a large rambling estate in Cornwall one of the prettiest coastal counties in the West Country. Award winning cinematographer Andrew Dunn gave us some stunning panoramas and added to Nic Ede's eye catching costumes, it was at least a visual treat if nothing else.

Available on DVD in the UK but I cannot see it ever opening in the US, even for die-hard Downton fans.

★★★★

ALAN PARTRIDGE : ALPHA PAPA

Alan Partridge is a comic phenomenon in the UK : an iconic fictional inept character that has been something of a national treasure since he first appeared as a bumbling Sports Reporter on BBC Radio in 1991. He went on to host his own parody television talk show 'Knowing Me, Knowing You ....with Alan Partridge'.  As fast as he rose, his fictional career also plummeted rapidly and by the 1997 having lost his national TV gig he was forced to eat humble pie and settle for a job as a DJ on a local radio station in his home town of Norwich.  ( Note to non UK readers : very pretty cathedral city that is a boring as hell in a county that Noel Coward famously described as 'very flat')

Now the station is about to be taken over by a Conglomerate and when Alan learns that his new bosses intend to get rid of one of the older DJ's he persuades them to keep him and fire his middle-aged colleague Pat who does the 'graveyard' shift in the wee small hours of the morning.  Pat, recently widowed and probably totally unemployable elsewhere, loses the plot and stages an armed siege at the Radio Station and refuses to negotiate with the Police and insists that 'his best mate' Alan acts as the go-between.

It's a perfect set-up for Alan to grab some media attention and possibly make it work to get his career back on track. Except that not only he is a compulsive bungler, he also has simply cannot ever stop talking and he has a knack for saying the most offensive things and being totally unaware that anyone might object.

This is an hilarious quintessentially Brit comedy that is a total delight. Partridge is the creation of gifted actor/writer Steve Coogan who along with fellow writers Rob & Ned Gibbons, Peter Baynham & notably Armando Iannucci have over the years so succinctly developed such a unavoidably lovable character. What is so refreshing is the fact that the transition to the big screen completely maintains Partridge's low level brand of humor and resisted in making it a grandstand over-the-top manic piece that is the norm when TV characters break out.

It is undoubtedly the most perfect vehicle for Coogan's talents to shine forth.  Despite his extremely impressive body of work, he has yet to make the leap into movie stardom, and although he may well deserve too with this, it is way too steeped in everything British for it to even find an audience in other markets, let alone his place amongst the Hollywood 'A' list.  In the UK where every adult can quote at least one of Partridge's inane and silly quips, it will reinforce Coogan's reputation as a major comic actor, and come Awards time he will be adding to the numerous ones he has already won playing Partridge on the TV.

Already available on DVD via Amazon in the UK but no plans for a US Release until 2014.  Watch this space .

★★★★★★★★

ESCAPE FROM TOMORROW

The most interesting thing about this rather surreal and intensely weird black comedy is the fact that it was clandestinely filmed at a Disney Park without permission.  It would never have been granted anyway if writer/director Randy Moore had bothered to ask, as he so obviously hates Disney and everything it stands for.  According to Mr. Moore, Mickey Mouse actually has a very sinister agenda.

The story starts with Jim who’s just checked in to his hotel at the Theme Park to be unceremoniously fired by his boss over the phone. News he keeps from his overly anxious wife and his two small children, as it’s the start of their family vacation.  He does however behave badly with them being impatient and at times angry, and at the same time he develops an obsession with two young French girls he keeps coming across in the Park. His fantasies about the girls take the form of sinister hallucinations that make even the most innocuous rides like ‘It’s A Small World’ appear to him like a psychedelic trip.

Jim’s fixation with the girls, at the expense of making his family miserable, makes him appear more like a dirty old lecherous man, rather than one who is bitterly disappointed with the life he has been dealt. Moore's vision is that mega-corporations like Disney insure that the Jim's of the world really have no alternative than to go along with their squeaky-clean version of happiness that they peddle everywhere regardless of how they may really feel.

Despite the movie’s agenda it is however a rather thin story which has been stretched out way too long, although thankfully it does redeem itself in part at the end.  The actors do a fine job, but it’s the edgy black and white cinematography that Moore has twisted to present his warped view of Disney that is the real star here.  It is such good guerrilla filming that one of the main things you carry away from this film is that you cannot stop obsessing how on earth he and his team actually got away with shooting so much footage without being caught.

The movie premiered in Sundance and filmmakers rushed to see it and tripping over themselves to laud its virtues as everyone was convinced that it would never be legally allowed to be see the light of day. They were wrong as a silent Disney has sat by as it has it has played at Art-houses all over the US wowing audiences.

It is a very good audacious movie but I thought it never really fulfilled its potential, and it could/should have been a great one.  Still definitely worth a look especially if you share Mr Moore’s loathing of the Big Mouse and all his chums.

★★★★★★★
Available from Amazon DVD/VOD

UNA NOCHE

This story is a day and a very long night in the lives of three Cuban teenagers who are desperate for a better life.  For hotheaded Raul this can only mean one thing and that's leaving an impoverished dilapidated Havana for Miami where he's convinced the streets are paved with riches. He wants to seek out the father he never knew but above all he just dreams of wearing gold chains to his knees and driving around in a red sports car with a stripper for company. His friend Elio who works alongside him in a Hotel kitchen wants to go simply because he has a very serious secret crush on Raul. Lila is Elio's twin sister and the only reason that she persuades the boys to let her tag along is that she cannot bear to be parted from her brother.

There are hardly family ties to keep the kids there as the twins father is cheating on their mother, and Raul's prostitute mother suffering with AIDS is still 'working' the street even though she lacks any medication.  When Raul attacks and hurts a tourist 'client' who his mother has picked up, it escalates his need to leave as the Police are now searching for him.  

So Elio spends this last day being very resourceful as he knows that he needs to procure inner tubes, lumber, a compass, and maybe even a GPS, for the journey. He has little cash, but that is hardly a deterrent as all of this can be found on the flourishing black market usually by bartering.  His bike is the first thing to be traded in for an outboard motor.

Their very crude craft that they strap together will make the 90 mile ocean journey very precarious in the least especially when they discover that neither the motor, nor the GPS, work so they are left with no alternative than just to row and pray.

It's a heartwarming tale that despite its poignant sad tragedy, is full of life and hope as these impassioned rather colorful assertive kids seek a better future for themselves.  The fact that there are undercurrents of lust/love : Elio for Raul, and Raul for Lila, plus Lila's overpowering devotion for Elio, added more than a frisson to the story.

Stunningly photographed that you get a real sense of the whole unsettling environment of a impoverished city that is struggling to adapt and survive in a world that it is so alien to.  

The real joy is the three young leads, all local non-professional actors, who gave such brilliant convincing performances as if this was in fact their own life stories. In fact they were not, but in a twist of reality, the pair playing brother and sister 'disappeared' when they were en route to the movie's Premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in NY, and are now currently seeking asylum in Miami.

★★★★★★★★
Available at Amazon VOD/DVD 

BROADWAY IDIOT

In 2007 director Michael Mayer won his Tony Award for 'Spring Awakening' the exhilarating rock musical based on an obscure 19th German play that re-defined Broadway musicals for a new a generation.  It was a hard act to follow but Mayer had the inspired idea to develop a new Musical based on the punk group Green Day's mega hit iconic album 'American Idiot' which was essentially a kind of rock opera about an anti-hero called Jesus of Suburbia. 

The three members of Green Day were extremely cautious of the whole concept and in fact didn't give Mayer and his team permission to actually proceed until they did a mini-production of their take on a few of the songs. Billie Joe Armstrong the band's songwriter and frontman not only immediately endorsed the Show, but from then on actively encouraged the project and got involved wherever he could. 

This documentary from filmmaker Doug Hamilton covers the whole process of the creation of the show right through to the point that it is a critical and commercial hit on Broadway and the once reluctant Armstrong is now making occasional appearances on stage playing one of the lead characters.  It's an intoxicating ride and a great backstage story watching this show in the making. Whilst they are working from existing songs (and a few more from another Green Day album) Tom Kitt the musical collaborator must make them fit within the framework of the show and when he nervously previews them he is relived to hear that Armstrong think the arrangements are even better than his own.

Meanwhile when  Green Day is then nominated for some Grammys, Armstrong insists that he and the whole cast perform together at the Awards Concert. They are sensational which is perfectly fitting as that very night they have learnt that their tryout run in LA is to end as it has been confirmed that the Show is definitely destined  for Broadway.

OK.  Confession time.  I had heard of Green Day BUT had never knowingly listened to their music. Now I know that they are not only one of biggest rock groups around today, but that they write and sing some amazingly political-charged powerful songs about wanting to follow their dreams. By the end of the film I could appreciate not just the energy of their operatic like album and why Mayer could see so much in it, but also the fact that Armstrong was such a disarming charmer of a man too.

If you like these behind the curtain backstage stories then you will find this totally fascinating, and if like me, you have such fond memories of The Who's 'Tommy' then you will really relate to this too.  

P.S. The Show ended up winning two Tony's in 2010 and the Best Cast Album Grammy in 2011 : it ran over a year in Broadway and then toured the world ... literally .... after that.

★★★★★★★★

The movie is on limited theatrical release now and also VOD @ Amazon

AFTER LUCIA aka Después de Lucía

Life after Lucia dies in a fatal car accident is tough on her husband Roberto and teenage daughter Alejandra, and to help deal with their heartbreak and grief they up sticks and leave their family home in Puerto Vallarta to start a new life in Mexico City. Roberto is a chef and plans to start his own restaurant, whilst Alejandra has to deal with settling into her new school.

The latter is not difficult for Ale (as her friends call her) and she soon falls in tight with a group of popular kids led by the bossy Camilla. One weekend they all take to off one of their parent's opulent beach houses where alone they party real hard. Totally drunk Ale has bathroom sex with Jose a handsome hottie and she allows him to video it on his cellphone. When they all return home the video goes viral, and at the instigation of Camilla who had wanted Jose herself, Ale is immediately made a target of verbal and physical abuse by all her classmates.

No matter how very bad this degenerates she keeps it all from her father who she senses is dealing with too many of his own demons as a part of his grief. It isn't until after a school-trip to the Coast when the bullying results in a distraught Ali walking out into the Ocean, does the situation come to the notice of the teachers who then have to tell Roberto the bad news.

Despite Camilla's efforts most of whole story of the video and the campaign of terror levelled against Ale comes out, but because the children are legal 'minors' the Police are neither able to question any of them, or take any action against them. Roberto discovers that any private detective would also be unable to achieve more, so he takes the matter into his own hands determined to avenge his daughter.

Ali had actually not been drowned as everyone had suspected, but she had come ashore further up the beach and made her way back to camp out in her old house in Puerto Vallarta, but she was too petrified even to contact her father to tell him she was alive and safe.

This powerful tale of the heinous topic of school-bullying will leave you totally reeling no matter how many instances you may have been aware of previously.  Mexican writer/director Michel Franco skillfully builds this compelling story slowly from the very first scene when we see Roberto abandon a car in mid-traffic and as we gradually get a real sense of who this father and daughter are, everything fits into place.  Even the end, which is unquestionably one of the most disturbing finales to any movie that I have ever sat through.

Exceptional performances by an extraordinarily talented cast but I am totally in awe of Tessa Ia who played Ale with such sensitivity that so belied her young age.

The 'good' news about the movie is that it won the prestigious 'Un Certain Regard' at Cannes Film Festival.  The 'bad' news is that NO distributor has plans to show this in Theaters in the US, or even as VOD, as I'm guessing its considered way too tough take on a very controversial subject.  It is however available in the UK/Europe on DVD at www.amazon.co.uk  

P.S. I am lucky enough to live near the Miami Beach Cinematheque, an amazing Art House, where Director Dana Keith showed this movie one night as part of his 'Cinephile' Series.

★★★★★★★★★

RUSH

Close on the heels of 'Senna' one of the hot docs of 2012 that told of the bitter rivalry between the charismatic Brazilian 3-time World Champion Formula One Driver Ayrton Senna and  the French 4-time Champion Alain Proust comes this stunning narrative of a very similar battle royal two decades earlier.  In this instance, in one corner tall blond womanising ex-Public schoolboy too-handsome-for-his-own good British James Hunt and in the other the dour intensely overly-serious Austrian Nikki Lauda without a hint of sense of humor or any joie de vivre.

In this true real-life story both men had grown up in wealthy upper-class families whom both resisted when their sons announced their ambitions to become professional racing drivers. This stopped neither of them, and Hunt sweet-talked the English Aristocrat Lord Hesketh to be part of the Racing Team that the Peer was funding whereas the disinherited Lauda got himself a Bank Loan and bought his way into a Formula One team.

The nerdy Lauda slowly and diligently impressed his new team-mates with his fixation with the most minute details to improve both the car and his performance, whereas Hunt went out of his way to be a showy risk-taker on the track which made him the crowd's favorite driver. They were the very best drivers in Formula One that year and Lauda started winning races by his careful planning, whereas Hunt won his by taking dangerous manoeuvres and risky chances. 

Even off the track they led totally different lives. Hunt the playboy married Suzy Parker the most famous model of the day, whilst Lauda proposes to Marlene his long suffering girlfriend reluctantly with  'if I'm going to do it with someone, it might as well be you'.  

In 1975 Lauda now driving for the Ferrari team won his first World Championship beating Hunt who was still driving his much inferior Hesketh car.  In the next year Hunt signed on to the Maclaren team which gave him a car to match Lauda's and the fierce rivalry between the two drivers became almost deadly. In a plot that seems like it could only have been written for a movie, Lauda has a near-fatal crash and is almost burned to death, but less than two months later is back in his car for the final race of the Season that will determine the Championship between the two men.

Oscar winning director Ron Howard ('A Beautiful Mind') working from a script by Oscar nominated writer Peter Morgan ('The Queen' , 'Frost & Nixon') gives us the most thrilling motor racing movie that I have ever seen. The fact that it is melded with this very intense human drama, makes it so much more than just another fast action piece. These two highly charged men couldn't have been anymore different from each other.  Lauda may have been the one with the relentless determination to beat his rival at all costs, but Hunt also desperately wanted to be the winner that he would dangerously push both their boundaries to achieve it.

The cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle, another Oscar Winner ('Slumdog Millionaire') is nothing less than stunning, particularly of the creative way he filmed all the racing, although I could have done with a little less of the equally harrowing scenes of the up-close bloody gore when Lauda's face is being reformed under the surgeons knife.


Australian devilishly handsome Chris Hemsworth so
perfectly captured the James Hunt  I recall from the time, but Hunt never ever had that pumped up torso that Hemsworth is happy to reveal completely in one of his many bedtime romps. Both he, and the German/Spanish actor Daniel Bruhl as Lauda, gave what could possibly be career defining performances that should earn them some best acting nominations. 

I guess that most sporting championships succeed because of the passionate antagonistic clash of the two main players, but whether they are quite as lopsided or partisan as this one is questionable. At the same time that Hunt was portrayed as such a lovable irresistible bad-boy that every one wanted to succeed then the intensely boring Lauda was painted with his heavy Germanic accent as the one that no-one wanted to win.  If director Howard had been English, I would have accused him of letting our customary British teutonophobia creep through.

One of the few Hollywood blockbusters I have been tempted to see this year, and I am so pleased that I did as it is excellent.

P.S. If I had one 'but' to add, it would be for the ridiculous hair pieces all the men wore.  I know this was the 1970's but we cannot all have looked that bad.  Could we?

★★★★★★★★★

THE MONK

I guess it stands to reason if you write a banned novel back in 1796 that becomes a best-seller and it's about a devout Catholic Monk who cannot avoid lurid sins of the flesh and has some supernatural elements, then it's bound to get made into a movie once or twice over the next few centuries. This latest version has been made by German-born French Director Dominik Moll (César Award Winner) who had the good sense/fortune to cast another César Award Winner the magnificent Vincent Cassel in the title role.

Ambrosia had been abandoned as a baby on the steps of the Monastery outside Madrid and been brought up the Capuchin monks.  He grew up to become a brilliant and impassioned preacher whose sermons brought huge crowds and great fame and the odd stalker or two.  One of whom, a pretty young girl, concocts a devious plot so that she can be allowed into the tight knit cloister of monks and be close to her idol.  Her intentions are not honorable and by using some magical/witchlike powers she manages to have her way with him when he's asleep and he wakes up none the wiser.

Meanwhile Antonia, another young woman, he made faint by the mere power of his preaching, and who is about to be affianced to a dashing young nobleman, becomes the next woman he beds.  This time he's awake although he's under the spell of the Devil who obviously made him do it, but he's not cognisant of all the fact that she is the younger daughter of the mother that abandoned him many years ago.

I'm not a great fan of this genre especially when it features Catholic priests behaving badly yet once again, but I so liked the way that Moll filmed it with its heavy Gothic imagery all dimly-lit and accompanied by a dark sonorous soundtrack. I sort of expected either Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee to step out of the shadows as they did so often in one of their better Hammer horror movies. Instead it was the imposing figure of a splendid Cassel who with his stony faced expression never showed an ounce of emotion until madness crept over him.

I guess it's a taste I never acquired, and its hard to have even the odd second of sympathy for Ambrosia, but if you have a penchant for big-time sinning Catholics and a touch of the supernatural, then this one is for you.

Out now on DVD & VOD

★★★★★

SIMON KILLER

When we first see Simon who has just graduated from College, he's camping out at a acquaintance's apartment in Paris and talking out-loud to himself about Michelle his ex-lover back home in New York who caused his current misery when she broke up with him.  He's lonely and somewhat bitter, and in a city where he knows no-one, and with only a smattering of bad french at his command and so he spends many a night staying home and attempting to masturbate.   He doesn't even do that very well either.

On a rare night out in the city he tries to pick up Sophie a young student but all he ends up with is her phone number, and so consequently takes himself off to a sex club. There he meets Victoria a prostitute who thinks that this young man could be a step up from her usual clients, and so she also gives Simon her phone number. They start to meet up regularly and Simon tricks her into letting him moving into her apartment and she starts giving him money too. Once he gets what he wants then he starts behaving badly ..... encouraging Victoria to blackmail her clients .... whilst at the same time he is off having dates/sex with good girl Sophie.

Simon is such a despicable and completely unlikable protagonist, its a real mystery that any woman ever falls for him, but when he fails to hide his true nature, they all want out and quickly. This rather desperate self-centred selfish young man then really shows his demented psycho side which is hinted at in the title of the piece. When he starts to go off the rails, the plot lines do too, but however it does rally at the end with a very strong finish. 

Rather brilliantly played by Brady Corbet (who also co-wrote it). Mr Corbet is no stranger to somewhat creepy guy roles as his resume includes 'Mysterious Skin', 'Melancholia' and 'Martha Marcy May Marlene'. The latter movie having been produced by Antonio Campos  who co-wrote and directed this one.

Uncomfortable to watch.   Available now on DVD.

★★★★★★

YOU WILL BE MY SON

Paul has always imitated and bullied his rather meek adult son Martin.  He blames his wife's premature death on the sheer stress of looking after puny Martin in his difficult childhood, and although his son has worked hard to take his place in the family winemaking business, he still does not have either the love or respect of his difficult father.

Their rather spectacular Bordeaux vineyard has been in their family for 11 generations so Martin assumes when his father dies he will inherit it next.   Paul has other ideas and when Francois his old Estate Manager and right-hand man is diagnosed with terminal cancer, he panics and calls and asks Francois's son Phillipe to come home and visit his dying father. Phillipe has been managing the famed Coppola Winery in California and is a charming extrovert and confident young man  ... the very opposite of Martin.

It soon becomes clear that Paul's motive in persuading Phillipe's visit was a devious plot to make him his heir and adopted son rather than have him visit his sick father. Along the way the wily old man not only breaks the heart of Martin who has put up with being treated with such disdain over years, but he also unknowingly infuriates Francois who has never been rewarded for his enormous part of the vineyards success and now sees this wealthy man just attempting to 'buy' his son.  It will be Paul's eventual downfall.

This monster father & mild son strife is a rather harrowing psychological dark drama more surprisingly so as it is set in the extraordinarily beautiful lush green countryside with its rolling hills and its wonderful ancient chateau.  Paul is played so perfectly by veteran Nils Arestrup who seems to have cornered the market in playing this tough father figures in French cinema ('Our Children', 'The Prophet', 'The Beat That My Heart Skipped'). Martin is played by Lorant Deutsch but poor man, his character is overshadowed not just by handsome Phillipe (Nicolas Bridet) but also from his lively feisty wife Madeline (Valérie Mairesse) who is the only one not scared of facing up to this unscrupulous old man.

Gripping story beautifully told with an unexpected ending.

P.S. Apart from this being my second Nils Arestrup this week, its my third movie on wine making in as many weeks ('Red Obsession' & 'Somm') ..... I really want a drink now BUT they all featured vintages I could probably never afford!

★★★★★★★★

THANKS FOR SHARING

Adam is celebrating his fifth year of sobriety and is doing really well. Neil lies and gets his 30 day clean chip whereas in reality he hasn't actually managed a single day. These two men are part of a 12 Step Program for addiction, but the compulsive habit they are trying to break is not alcohol or drugs but sex ....the one dependence that never seems to be treated as seriously as the others.

First glance at Adam, who is a extremely handsome successful business man with stunning Manhattan apartment, gives no hint of the 'sickness' he is fighting.  He sticks to his rigidly enforced routine of no television, no computer, and even no rides on the subway with its endless parade of pretty women to tempt him. And strictly no pleasuring himself alone. Neil on the other hand spends every night glued to his laptop watching endless pornography, and each day either grinding his body up to unsuspecting girls on the subway or surreptitiously filming up the skirts of his work colleagues which ends up getting him fired from his job as a doctor in the ER Department at an Hospital.

Their predicaments may be serious but this on the other hand is essentially a romantic comedy, and despite the occasional brief dark moment, we are meant to like these men, and Mike, Adam's sponsor too, and want them to be happy.  And they are mostly. Happy that is.  Adam meets ravishing Phoebe who's last boyfriend was an alcoholic and who declares on their second date that she never wants to be with another addict ever again.  When she discovers that Adam is, the news doesnt go down too well, but by this time they are so into each other, they try hard to make it work.

It is not until that Neil loses his job and has hit rock bottom that he meets blond punk and fellow addict Dede at one of the Meetings and there is an immediate rapport between these two, that things start to turn around for him. Theirs is not a romantic connection but one based on a recognition that neither have been able to consider the other gender in any nonsexual way and so they can become an unofficial support system for each other when dealing with frequent temptations.

Mike, on the other, is the wise old bird whose addiction once gave his wife hepatitis, but she has stuck by him in the decades since.  Despite the fact that he is the adored senior figure at the Meetings as he has a sympathetic word and advice for all, he cannot bear to even offer an ounce of support to his own (drug) recovering son. Their relationship has to get to the very brink of no return before it can ever start to be salvaged.

Oscar nominated writer Stuart Blumberg ('The Kids Are Alright') in his directing debut successfully gambles with blending these somewhat scary addiction plots with funny heartwarming characters that we cannot fail to connect with in such a positive way. Adam, played as a suave and immensely charmer, by Mark Ruffalo, looks the most unlikely sexual predator. Whereas Neil, played by Josh Gad, is a complete slob who with his creepy overly familiar Jewish mother, does seem the stereotype, but he has such a great voluble sense of humor you so want him to succeed in cracking his problem. Mike, played by the wonderful Tim Robbins, seems like the most together of all the men, but he in fact has more than his own demons to deal with.

And I so cannot miss mentioning the sublime Gwyneth Paltrow who was refreshingly funny and warm as Phoebe who eventually too had to admit that she has some compulsions she needed to deal with too.  In all her scenes I kept think why don't we see her on the screen more often, especially in rom-coms as she just simply shines in every scene.

Comedy or not, I did come out with an slightly enlightened comprehension about the whole sex addict compulsion which I have really have not come across (yet) .... but with my established practice of dating serial addicts, I'm sure it wont be long before that changes.

Great movie : highly recommended.

★★★★★★★★