Simply Perfect

Overrated and overhyped

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

There are a lot of good dramatic performances in this film, but sadly they are all wasted since there's no point to the movie that I could discern, no consistent style or character development or anything else you might reasonably expect. It starts with an interviewee who confesses that he involuntarily calls out a ridiculous phrase about political freedom during climax, so you think - OK, it's going to be all-out Python-esque comedy, then nothing else in the movie matches that tone. It seems like a bunch of auditions for different types of movies stitched together, with an after-thought theme tacked on (a woman trying to make sense of her abandonment by a lover). Basically it's self-indulgent film-school pretentiousness masquerading as some sort of deep psychological exploration.

I could give it a much lower score had it not been for some great performances and dialogue by the African Americans in the movie: subject 42(Frankie Faison) and his father(Malcolm Goodwin) and the funny interview of subject that talks about the types of "fella". But as a whole, this movie was just all over the place...it was very much a chore to make things fit and make sense and the last monologue by John Krasinski didn't make sense, i mean, if he was the one who cheated, why would he be the one that's mad and overflowing with anger in the scene? although the story he was telling was very interesting... and the lead character lacks so much character that its very difficult to empathize with her..and the editing...oh my, it didn't help to make this story less convoluted didn't it? So, i did like the film, i thought there were very powerful scenes in it, around 5 to 6 scenes that were very redeeming..but for the most part, the film was boring or would easily get you to lose taste in it because of the editing (timeline? what timeline?--No, not Memento-jumbled-time-interesting type of interesting, just plain jumbled mess). Would i recommend it? yes, if only for the few scenes that i really liked...

This is an incredibly boring film.The pretentiousness is unparalleled, as other reviewers have said. There isn't anything insightful here, it's just a mismatch of overly-dramatic monologues that don't make a coherent point either individually or in the aggregate.Before I judge Krasinski (the director) for the writing, I should consult the book from which the film was sourced. But such would be too tiresome. Whatever the original text offered this film discards. It also wore me out on Krasinski. I recommend skipping this one and avoiding his other work in the future. He's just not content with the trite, but funny, Jim from The Office. This is one actor / director who wants to reach deeper and will sacrifice coherence to pretend it.

This film is so caught up in it's own revelatory ideas and themes that it comes off too strong and too pretentious. If a film wants to make a commentary on sexual dynamics and people's inner dialogues maybe it should let these stories tell themselves a bit more and let things develop a bit more naturally. I like monologues and cerebral conjecture just as much as the next guy but when it becomes exhausting and tiresome to listen to and the movie in effect starts to isolate me then it has failed in it's original objective. If your objective is to educate and be insightful you should probably make sure your audience still cares at the end of the film. I know it is just my opinion but this film turned me off completely even though I really wanted to see it.