The film's centralmost character is Bradley (Greg Kinnear), a coffeeshop owner whose wife (Selma Blair) has just left him for another woman, and he is having trouble getting back in the dating game. This is easy for his employee Oscar, a twenty something, when Chloe walks into the shop and they have an instant connection. But Chloe has an abusive father she can't escape.
Bradley is helped by the sagelike Harry (Morgan Freeman) who sort of acts as a Greek chrous/narrator to the film. Harry is longtime married to Esther (Jane Alexander) and they are still dealing in some way with the death of their son. Bradley meets a realtor Diana (Radha Mitchell) who is having an affair with a married man (Billy Burke). These couples are all in various states and styles of love affairs.
While the younger couple of Chloe and Oscar and their storyline seemed the least interesting and ordinary in filmdom, the rest of the stories were interesting and well-acted. The Bradley/Diana story of course is the most complex in both the film and how they affect the lives around them. Characters such as Bradley's wife or Diana's lover are not black and white bad guys either, so this is not a typical romance yet still pretty much has a feel good ending. It equates love to a feast where there is so much bounty, but where you migh like one thing, I might like another, and we have different levels of appetites. We consume as little or as much as we like but it is ultimately up to ourselves as to what we take.
No comments:
Post a Comment