“Is it better not to live than to live and suffer?” Don’tcha hate it when a character, in this case a scraggly Columbia University professor (Sam Waterston), breaks the ice by spelling out a film’s thesis? Suffer we do as a cast of top name performers (Glenn Close, Kristen Stewart, Gretchen Mol, Corey Stoll), drawn together by a pre-credit tragedy, gradually converge as expected amid a sudsy sea of histrionical subplotting. Given but 90 minutes to work with, writer-director-co-star Tim Blake Nelson simply doesn’t have the time needed to flesh out all the anger. Much of it plays like canned therapy: K. Todd Freeman takes center-square as a content heroin addict compelled to weather a forced intervention, followed closely by Stewart turning her time spent on the couch into a narcissistic confession booth. Mol’s running commentary on neighborhood moms initially lightens the load until bottle of white wine used a pointed prop levels the levity. (2015) — Scott Marks
This movie is not currently in theaters.