The filmmaking debut of stage director Michael Mayer cannot much profit from the line of promotion stressing its shared origins in the author of The Hours, Michael Cunningham. It's true that the storyline spans a number of years, though nowhere near generations, the principal upshot of which is that the protagonist has to pass through three actors in the space of fifteen years. (His boyhood pal passes through only two in half that time.) In other words, this novel is more resistant to adaptation: the three central characters of The Hours didn't have to split their parts with anyone. Too, it emits louder noises of axe-grinding in the setting-up of a Nontraditional Family Unit: two dads, one gay, one undecided, and an unmarried mother and Woodstock alum who makes hats for pocket change, but not out of a need to hide her paprika hair. Colin Farrell, in trying to act like a provincial twenty-four-year-old, acts instead like a village idiot. But Sissy Spacek does her usual unadorned good work in the role of a middle-class suburban parent who goes beyond mere permissiveness to willing participation. And Robin Wright Penn, albeit more adorned, also does some good work, despite the unkindness of the cut and color of her hair. With Dallas Roberts, Matt Frewer, Erik Smith, Harris Allan. (2004) — Duncan Shepherd
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