Revenge is sweet, justice is even sweeter, but redemption is sweetest of all.  Classic American themes such as this might not be as American as we’d like to believe, evident by The Concert from French director, Radu Mihaileanu, who defines it through a poignant yet hilarious film.  I’ve often criticized the “Dramedies” for being a tug-of-war between the two, but there are a few films that manage to blend this kind of tragedy with comedy so well.

The story centers on Andrei Filipov (Aleksei Guskov), once a prodigy and prestigious conductor of the world renown Bolshoi orchestra, now a janitor in the same building where they rehearse.  He and his orchestra were victims of anti-semitism after Andrei’s refused to fire the Jewish musicians in his orchestra.  Humiliated and berated during a performance, the orchestra was disbanded 30 years ago, crushing the futures of each musician.  Even Andrei’s wife resorts to rounding up extras to perform as protestors or wedding guests depending on the clients as he watches helplessly and winces at the horrible sounds coming from the current Bolshoi orchestra.

Salvation comes on the fax machine one afternoon, when the Pleyel in Paris requests the Bolshoi perform for them in two weeks time as a last minute replacement for the Los Angeles Philharmonic.  Without so much as a second thought, he confronts his former cellist, Dimitri (Sacha Grossman), and tells him he intends to impersonate the Bolshoi.  Dimitri reluctantly approves but soon finds motivation after manhandling their former manager into working for them again, the same hard line communist supporter who interrupted their performance 30 years ago and one who clearly has ulterior motives in Paris.  Rounding up their former musicians in the most unlikely places by way of Dimitri’s run down ambulance, they manage to bring together most of the old orchestra with a few new and highly questionable choices to fill in the gaps.  Later negotiating a deal for formal wear and instruments through a black market dealer with connections in Paris, the glimmer of hope this might actually work begins to show.

Despite some outrageous demands from their manager (including a meal at a restaurant that no longer exists) and his stubborn approach of doing business, he succeeds in booking lodging, meals, payment, and tourist attractions for the orchestra.  Most impressive is his success in getting a very popular soloist, Anne-Marine Jacquet (Melanie Laurent), to perform with the Bolshoi.  Andrei’s insistence on getting her and no one else along with a shoebox filled with articles and CDs that he seems emotionally attached to worries those around him.  When Dimitri confronts him about it, Andrei reveals some startling secret that we as an audience aren’t made aware of.

Just as the plan seems to come together, the orchestra arrives in Paris and heads off in different directions after getting their per diem money, eager to enjoy the City of Lights and possibly exploit the local economy a bit.  Andrei curses at his manager to do his job and get them to rehearsal, but his frustration disappears as Anne-Marie Jacquet arrives.  Though music is a central part of the film and pieces of it abound throughout the film, there’s probably no better expression of music as tied to kinship between strangers than the scene that follows.  The few musicians that remain begin playing and Anne-Marie instantly seems to know each of them.  She’s amazed by their skill and begins to question her own, particularly for the conductor’s unwavering choice of playing Tchaikovsky’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra.

As Anne-Marie and Andrei have dinner together, a combination of Andrei’s 30 year old torment and current drinking problem lead to a dramatic retelling of his last attempt to perform the Concerto, but falls short of telling her it was his last.  Concerned with the general instability of the orchestra and it’s conductor, she comes to the bitter conclusion that she nor the orchestra is capable of performing at the level its conductor wants.  With the performance’s future uncertain, Dimitri makes a last desperate effort to convince Anne-Marie to play while the musicians are gathered together.  Dimitri hints at the secret Andrei revealed, which is enough to convince her to rejoin the orchestra.  Her manager, already suspected of some secret history with Andrei, offers Anne-Marie a 30 year old copy of the performance with handwritten notes made by the last musician, Ana.  The words “For Ana” manage to get the musicians together in formal dress just in time, and as the music starts… the outlook is grim.

Notes are both flat and sharp, the audience is already showing signs of disappointment.  Even the conductor winces in much the same way he did when he was watching the real Bolshoi.  But once Anne-Marie begins, it’s as if the orchestra is feeding off her energy.  As they say in jazz, she wakes the band up, and the concert that follows is an amazing medley of not only music, but a montage of that great secret revealed.  Sentimental and possibly far-fetched, the imagery combined with the incredible sound of Tchaikovsky seems to be enough to suspend disbelief and embrace the film for what it is.

Although the film hovers between comedy and drama a bit longer than most, there’s a balance to the film that makes those changes subtlety and takes the chance of doing so in order to remain true to the story.  Although a French film, the opening takes place in Russia and even the French is distinctly Russian in it’s delivery, but this mashing of languages adds to the film’s comedy and is actually translated well through the English subtitles.  Like many films that compare cultures, jabs at the French, Russians, and even the Americans are common.  There are a number of great performances, both from the leads and in moments with the collection of character actors, but it’s the music itself that truly steals the show.

The Concert opens in limited release on July 30.

It is somewhat difficult to translate the title of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s quirky new film, Micmacs à tire-larigot, into English.  According to Le Petit Robert (the definitive French dictionary), a micmac is a sort of shady intrigue or suspect action, and à tire-larigot simply indicates that these intrigues and actions are bountiful, or occurring endlessly.  I cannot think of a more fitting appellation for this Rube Goldberg machine of a movie, whose ceaseless twists and turns lead its viewers from opening to closing credits in ways that we would never expect.  Jeunet, whose previous works include the Sweeney Todd-esque Delicatessen and the wildly popular Amélie, has a knack for transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary, and it is this quality that drives his latest comedy.

When the film opens, we are introduced to a young boy named Bazil, whose father, a soldier in the French army, is killed while attempting to dismantle a land mine in Morocco. Thirty years later, we find the now-adult Bazil (Dany Boon) with a bullet lodged in his brain after being accidentally shot outside the video store where he works.  Aside from a scar running across his forehead, the only side effect of this wound appears to be an occasional mental overflow, at which point Bazil flips through a ready supply of curious questions (Are there pygmy midgets?) in order to reset himself.

Upon leaving the hospital, Bazil tries to return to his job at the video store but discovers that he has been replaced.  Having no money and no place to stay, he joins a motley crew of characters inhabiting a subterranean residence full of salvaged junk that they repair and transform into a variety of wacky sculptures and contraptions.  Among the members of Bazil’s new family are a contortionist (Julie Ferrier), a human canon record setter (Dominique Pinon), a girl so adept at measuring and calculating by sight that she is simply called Calculette (Marie-Julie Baup), and a guillotine survivor (Jean-Pierre Marielle).

After discovering that the bullet in his head and the mine that claimed his father’s life were manufactured by competing arms companies, Bazil decides to plot his revenge (with a little help from his new ragtag band of amis) by setting the heads of the two corporations against each other.  It is not the act of revenge itself that constitutes the heart of Micmacs, but the process.  What could have been just another story of vengeance is metamorphosed into a magical journey thanks to the inventive and often off-the-wall ways in which Bazil and company go about the task.

Although the film contains some fairly serious political undertones (from 2005 to 2009, France was the world’s fourth largest weapons exporter), the movie manages to remain lighthearted due to the continuous stream of crazy capers pulled off by an equally crazy host of characters.

As is typical with Jeunet films, Micmacs is set against a backdrop of beautiful, richly colored visuals and features a charmingly diverse score composed by Raphaël Beau.  I would not be surprised to see Micmacs follow in Amélie’s footsteps and receive a couple of Oscar nominations next year, perhaps for Art Direction, Cinematography, or even Best Original Screenplay.

Micmacs is an enchanting, clever, and offbeat picture that will undoubtedly leave you smiling.  If there is one drawback to this zany comedy, it is that the plot is at times a bit tangled (much like the labyrinth of discarded odds and ends in which the characters reside).  It takes a keen eye to follow all that happens, and I look forward to a second viewing.

Technically, this review covers a span of time greater than a week, but if the Academy can expand its Best Picture category, surely we can do the same with days in a week. In this first “week,” four AwardsPicks writers (Bowen and Freiberg doubling up, excellently if I may say) covered six of the so-called “lesser” categories, although many of these efforts likely required more devotion than the banner ones and are often of higher quality.

I was really struck by the audacity of some of these filmmakers. In Freiberg’s Best Documentary report, we learned of incredibly dangerous feats, ranging from Burma VJ’s raw, revolutionary footage to the plight of environmentalists as they are pursued frighteningly by Japanese poachers (The Cove), along with impoverished children risking everything for a chance at a now-dilapidated American Dream (Which Way Home). Regardless of who wins, these are all highly compelling tales that deserve to be noticed. When the award is announced at the Oscars, there are bound to be people hearing about these injustices for the first time and probably remarking things like, “I had no idea they were killing dolphins in Japan ,” or “What, there’s oppression in Burma?” If awareness is the ultimate goal, getting nominated is a huge accomplishment.

Kit Bowen tackled the truly obscure in her Live Action Short and Animated Short pieces. In Live Action, she introduced us to a wild combination of candidates. Two of the nominees are tragically serious: The Door seems especially intriguing as an avant-garde take on the horrors of Chernobyl, while Kavi – about child slavery in India – just seems sad. Instead of Abracadabra has that charming, winsome feel to it and Miracle Fish appears to have remnants of The Twilight Zone (Bowen informs us). As for The New Tenants, starring well-known actors, I think it has to be your cup of tea. I concur with Bowen on The Door as a likely winner, but let’s see what the buzz (if this category stirs any) indicates as the Oscars near.

In Animated Short, the race should be extremely tight and unpredictable; look for some Oscar pools to be decided here. This is one of my favorite categories, since there’s always bound to be colorful ingenuity. You can watch French Roast, Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty (a distorted bedtime story), and The Lady and the Reaper (Scoop meets a farcical The Sea Inside?) in their entirety, while getting a taste of Logorama and the new Wallace and Gromit short. Bowen endorsed The Lady and the Reaper, but I found it too silly despite its clever premise. I’m wondering how Granny O’Grimm even got a nomination, since the storyline was entirely predictable and lacked any original insight. It was by far the worst of the nominees. French Roast, however, was executed brilliantly and was masterful in its amusing twists and turns. I absolutely loved it. Since the dialogue in Logorama was a little too forced (almost unnaturally urban) for my taste, I would see this as a two-horse race between French Roast and the always-wonderful Wallace and Gromit. Keep in mind, though, that I am not an Academy voter, and Kit Bowen knows how they think. Go watch the films and decide for yourself.

Christa Youngpeter provided some stirring analysis of the Documentary Short category. I was pretty touched just from the descriptions alone, especially in the case of Music by Prudence (which Youngpeter endorsed). China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province about the toll of an earthquake and The Last Truck: Closing of a GM plant (self-explanatory) are more standard tragedies, which while enlightening, probably lack the punch of a more unorthodox effort. The Last Campaign of Booth Gardner is another euthanasia story, which may be a little overplayed for Oscar glory. For me, the final two candidates pose the best chance, which are the aforementioned Music by Prudence – about a Zimbabwean girl who sings despite horrendous disabilities – and the incredibly unique Rabbit a la Berlin, which shows rabbits running wild within the Berlin Wall construct.

Paul Popiel was quick to dispense his viewpoints in the Best Foreign Film review, but such a controversial topic can benefit from an opinionated presentation. Happy, enjoyable efforts like Amelie appear to be missing from this year’s pool. The much-discussed The White Ribbon (a dark portrayal of a pre-World War I German village) is the clear favorite, especially with Ajami (violence in Tel Aviv) and Milk of Sorrow (highlights crimes of Peruvian fascism) unlikely to inspire away any votes. A Prophet appears interesting, even if it’s not quite groundbreaking, but it probably lacks the capability to take down The White Ribbon. The Secret in Their Eyes also has a compelling plot, but the personal/political story of a crime revisited – good as it may be – has had neither the following nor attention of The White Ribbon.

Lastly, Nate Freiberg adventured into the Best Animated Film category and laid out the particulars with expert craftsmanship. The increase to five nominees has still left worthy options out in this exploding genre of film (see Freiberg’s list of potential snubs), and Up’s inclusion on the Best Picture list pretty much guarantees a win in the Best Animated Film scrum. That being said, it was nice to see a couple of idiosyncratic nominees (Coraline and The Fantastic Mr. Fox) get acclaimed. The Princess and the Frog, though nominated, is the real loser here, as expectations were much higher than what ultimately resulted. After the success of Enchanted, I fully anticipated a lucrative showing, but viewers were more transfixed by the other nominees this year and of course, Avatar (which is almost a CGI film itself). As Freiberg points out, The Secret of Kells has virtually no chance, but it should benefit greatly from the somewhat-surprising nomination. Tremendous praise must be extended to Pixar, however, for once again leading the pack in the animated genre.

What a superb first week of reviewing, especially when you consider the obscurity of some of these films. Week 2 will focus more on the technical side of things, but it should feature some movies more recognizable to the everyday audience. Stay tuned for next week’s recap, and make sure to follow along each day.

The Best Foreign Film category is about as popular among the average viewers as the Best Sound Editing category. Or the Best Documentary Short Subject. No one really cares about a movie in a foreign tongue, on some obscure subject, that will never play in one’s local metroplex, and even if it did, one would never see it anyway.

Nevertheless, the category can get quite controversial among critics, commentators and serious filmgoers. After all, who can forget the criminal snubbing of 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days, a visceral film superior to anything else that was nominated in 2008? What about last year’s vomit-inducing win by the Japanese sugary, simplistic melodrama Departures , over the excellent The Class , and the superbly innovative Waltz with Bashir (in my opinion the best film of that year)?

People were ready to kill over films seen by less than 1% of the US population. Go figure.

Of course, since the Academy Awards are televised, they are in part ruled by ratings. Hence, for instance, this sad attempt to bolster the audience by increasing the amount of Best Picture nominations, in a year in which very few films stood out to begin with (The Blind Side?). The regard for ratings also helps explain why the Academy often plays it safe, particularly in the Best Picture (Crash?) and Foreign Film Categories (Departures?). It does not want to alienate viewers by awarding less-seen, more challenging films.

So what’s in store this year? The 2010 Foreign Film nominee roster is perhaps Oscar’s darkest category. Each of the films is challenging in its own right, and none offers an audience-friendly view of the world.

Ajami, an Israeli-German co-production, explores a Tel Aviv neighborhood ridden with religiously-motivated conflict and violence. While it ends all-too-neatly, the film exhibits very bold, unsentimental filmmaking.

The Secret In Their Eyes, from Argentina, tells an engaging story of a man who revisits a crime committed more than 30 years prior; a crime which has political implications, but even darker personal ones. Well-directed, including an incredible tracking-shot that begins with a helicopter shot of a soccer stadium and ends with a police chase in the stadium’s underbelly, the film is an interesting entry and one which received the least attention of this year’s nominees.

Except for, perhaps, Milk of Sorrow, from Peru. Winner of the prestigious Golden Berlin Bear at last year’s Berlinale, the film comments on crimes committed by Peru’s former fascist regime against women through the eyes and suffering of one such woman.

The most apolitical of the nominees, Jacques Audiard’s masterfully-directed A Prophet follows a young criminal’s rise to power in the French prison system. While the story is expertly told and brilliantly acted, it doesn’t break any new ground. It is well-crafted entry into the gangster genre, but falls short of greatness. Nevertheless, it is emerging as one of the favorites for the Oscar win.

The favorite, of course, is Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon, which already scooped up the Palme D’Or at Cannes, and the Best Foreign Language Film Golden Globe, among several other prizes.

I tend to agree with the buzz. The White Ribbon is the strongest candidate and the likely winner this year. Haneke, emerging as a world-class filmmaker gives us his most disciplined and, oddly enough, his warmest film. Here, he creates a terrifying portrait of a pre-WWI German village with meticulous care, from its farming families to the baron who employs over half the town. Under his lens, the town and its hypocrisies, neuroses, and outbursts of violence become a richly-layered metaphor for the collapse of essentially a feudal order that led to some of the crazed fanaticism that characterized Nazism during WWII. The film serves as excellent commentary on the dangers of maintaining moral purity at all cost, regardless of methods and their unintended consequences. Haneke seems to suggest that preoccupation with moral rectitude can be a recipe for totalitarianism.

I vote for The White Ribbon because it is engaging, thought-provoking, beautifully shot, confidently told and contemporary and universal in its subject. Also, of the five nominees it is the most widely seen and, to put it bluntly, it’s the best film.

Road to the Oscars series:

Podcasts – Kit Bowen, Nate Freiberg, Adam Spunberg, and Phil Wallace

February 4: Live Action Short – Kit Bowen

February 5: Animated Short – Kit Bowen

February 8: Documentary Short Subject – Christa Youngpeter

February 9: Documentary Feature – Nate Freiberg

February 10: Foreign Language Film – Paul Popiel

February 12: Animated Film – Nate Freiberg

February 15: Sound Mixing – Jeremy Martin

February 16: Sound Editing – Jeremy Martin

February 17: Original Song – Adam Spunberg and Savanna New

February 18: Visual Effects – Mallory Pickard

February 19: Original Score – Adam Spunberg

February 22: Makeup – Christa Youngpeter

February 23: Costume – Steve Neumann

February 24: Art Direction – Christa Youngpeter

February 25: Film Editing – Steve Neumann

February 26: Cinematography – Paul Popiel

February 27: Original Screenplay – Jeremy Martin

February 28: Adapted Screenplay – Jeremy Martin

March 1: Supporting Actress – Marla Seidell

March 2: Supporting Actor – Phil Wallace

March 3: Actress – Marla Seidell

March 4: Actor – Kit Bowen

March 5: Director – Adam Spunberg

March 5: Picture – Kit Bowen

March 7: The 82nd Annual Academy Awards!

Chalk up “The White Ribbon” as one of those German art films, in which the images are stark and minimalistic, the action languid and slow – and little to nothing is either revealed nor resolved. Coming from German auteur Michael Haneke (“Funny Games,” “The Piano Teacher”), it’s all very intellectual and thought-provoking and makes a statement about oppression and feudalism in a pre-WWI German village. But the film is also often maddeningly dull and puzzling for no apparent reason besides being self-indulgent art for art’s sake.

“The White Ribbon” takes place in a small, rural village, in which a wealthy land Baron (Ulrich Tukur) employs over half the town to harvest his crops. There’s the hard-headed Steward (Josef Bierbichler), who tends to the grounds; the desperate Farmer (Branko Samarovski), who depends on the Baron for work; and then the other villagers who compose the other half, including the stern Pastor (Burghart Klaußner) and the lascivious Doctor (Rainer Bock). Each of these village men all have rather large families, with many children, and the film’s sadistic, central core comes from what happens to those children behind closed doors.

As narrated to us by the only seemingly kindhearted man in the village, the Schoolteacher (Christian Friedel), he describes a series of incidents one summer that set things in motion: The Doctor falls off his horse and breaks his collarbone after the animal is tripped by a thin wire; the Farmer’s wife dies when she falls through rotten floor boards on the Baron’s estate; the Baron’s only child is found beaten by a cane. Then, as Haneke peels back the layers, we begin to see what life is really like in this village, witnessing the abuse and the oppression, and watching how these creepy, “Children of the Corn”-looking kids may or may not be acting out.

Of course, writer/director Michael Haneke’s masterful craftsmanship is something to appreciate and admire, especially in his black-and-white vision with “Ribbon.” The imagery is both stunning and startling. Haneke also obviously gets a kick out of exploring humanity’s cruel nature, as evident in his other films, including “Funny Games” (maybe he has some issues to work out). There are moments in the film in which you feel something truly dreadful is going to happen, something will be resolved, but then nothing. Finally, at the end, the Schoolteacher tells us WWI begins and bang, we’re out. Huh?

Still, “The White Ribbon” is the type of film that picks up awards, so its recent Golden Globe win wasn’t surprising and neither would an Oscar win for Best Foreign Language. I’m just not the kind of movie watcher who enjoys being wrapped in existentialistic ennui – or in this case, existentialistic sadism – just for the sake of watching an art film. I left the theater, shaking my head, mumbling, “I sat through over two hours of this for nothing. I need to go take a nap.”

Two strong and well-rounded female driven films have generated deserved award buzz this season, and both resonate with a vibrato normally unheard of in most lady-centric period pieces. In An Education and Coco Before Chanel, we meet young women thrust into heartbreak and personal devastation that nary a Katherine Heigl character could overcome. Sinewy and gamine, both Carey Mulligan and Audrey Tautou capture the audience with both their coquettish beauty, and then demand attention through their misfortunes and mistreatment in pre and post war Europe while adding a hearty dash of charm along the way.

An Education tells the captivating story in drab-colored 1960’s London of a school girl (Mulligan) swept off her feet by a mysterious, smooth talking businessman (Peter Sarsgaard) leaving in his wake her parents’ not so subtle wish for her to attend Oxford. Mulligan is so at ease as Jenny, her rushed transformation from naïve cellist to school shirking rebel to broken-hearted young woman is both moving and predicable in the best possible way. As both she an the audience put the pieces together as to the true nature of her doting beau, one can’t help but share her crushing disappointment and cheer for her determined resiliency after her dreams slip away after one fateful discovery.

Mulligan, nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance, shines as a top-notch student poised for Oxford thanks to her wit and overbearing father (Alfred Molina). On a chance rainy encounter she meets David (Sarsgaard) and the two embark on a whirlwind romance taking sheltered Jenny to Paris while her lover embarks on shady business dealings with his morally questionable best friend Danny (Dominic Cooper) and his ditsy fur-clad girlfriend Helen (Rosamund Pike). As the gilded lies unravel, each character reveals their true nature, leaving Jenny in a shattered fairy tale and possibly some statuettes from the academy.

Across the English Channel, Audrey Tautou tackles perhaps fashion’s most worshiped icon in Anne Fontaine’s Coco Before Chanel, chronicling the couturier in her early years as a lonely orphan to her climb through the Paris elite. Tautou, like Mulligan, is utterly cherubic at first glance- soft brown hair, pool-like eyes and captivating smile. Once her character develops, though, a one-dimensional dimpled girl becomes uncontrollably fierce, even unlikable at times.

Director Marie Fontaine is careful not to traipse down the familiar path of laying out a heroine’s journey too early on in the film. Chanel didn’t fall out of the womb stitching couture, obviously, and the director subtly reminds the audience that she evolved into her larger than life self only after years of ladder climbing and shrewd decision-making. Unlike naïve working-class bred Jenny, Coco (ne Gabrielle Chanel) is more hardened to the world and sardonically inclined which adds to the movie’s biting authenticity and inherent watchability. Isn’t it, after all, so strangely rewarding watching a pre-war figure slog her way through society’s trenches to world-wide reverie rather than being born into wealth and privilege?

Legendary Spanish director Pedro Almodovar once again teams up with his darling muse, Penelope Cruz, to weave a complex, sometimes raw but overall beautiful film in “Broken Embraces.” Just nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language film, “Embraces” holds and doesn’t let go. Cruz effortlessly charms every second she’s on camera, leaving one longing for more whenever she’s absent in one of the many flashes forward in time.

That very longing, though, is the mortar that holds the rest of the characters together for 14 tumultuous years. Two men, one incredibly rich, the other incredibly involved in his art of directing, ultimately wind up heartbroken by Cruz’ character, Lena. Secretary by day, wannabe actress by trade and call girl by night to support her dying father, Cruz embodies all three of these conflicting personas with such ease and grace, one can’t help but remember why she won Best Actress at last year’s Academy Awards for “Vicky Christina Barcelona.”

“Embraces” begins in 2008, Madrid, Spain in the flat of a man, blinded late in life, going about his middle years as a pseudonym, Harry Caine (Lluís Homar). Thanks to the help of a busty young Samaritan reading him the paper (among other things), Harry comes across an obituary of a prominent business man, Ernesto Martel (José Luis Gómez). The two men, perfect foils, become interwoven in the life of Lena.

Without revealing too much (the film’s complexities begin to fall into place early on), a story that could be blandly one-dimensional, comes to life in a simmered, slow-cooked fashion across nearly a decade and a half. Fourteen years prior, Harry (ne Matteo Blanco), was a successful film director shouldered by his long-time manager Judit (Blanca Portillo), a hardened to the world single mother to Diego.

How the lives of these three falls into those of Lena and the powerful magnate Martel, is laid out for the audience in such careful detail that each character seems heartbreakingly real. Thanks to everything from the spot-on acting to the use of color to occasional laugh out loud humor, awe gain an intimate look at each player- their ambition, their duplicity, their secrets- and wind down to a satisfying, if not uplifting conclusion.

Almodovar again excels as a director, incorporating the inherent Gaudi-ish artiness and passion of Madrid, the soft simplicity of love and the cruel casualties of fate. As for its chances among other foreign film contenders? Certainly a possibility, but at times the air of commercial accessibility becomes apparent, leaving room for more challenging films to take the crown.

As an entire package, though, it does seem to have it all. Strong acting, even pacing, coherency (even despite the shifts in time) and a deep connection to human interaction and its often-devastating repercussions.