This could have been a really interesting movie and it started off promising but the end product was less than brilliant. Timothy Linh Bui should honestly never be allowed to write a film again. The script was truly atrocious on every level. With the script being as bad as it was, the actors tried to salvage what they could. Jessica Biel (who I've always loved in this types of films, if you haven't seen it yet, see LONDON. It's an underrated gem) was quite good here but there were moments of her performance that rang false, mostly her nude scenes where she seemed quite uncomfortable. Eddie Redmayne is decent but unspectacular, though his character was quite annoying until the very end of the movie. Lisa Kudrow was great in her small role, but she was incredibly underused. There are bits of Forest Whitaker's performance that are truly great and then moments where he is cringe-worthy. The very definition of a mixed bag; and Ray Liotta was kind of just there. He didn't have any effect on me whatsoever. Overall, it could have been a really interesting movie but it falls flat. I do recommend seeing it for Biel's performance though. I wish she'd get more (and better) work.

5/10 ( C )

I didn't even finish watching this. It was that bad. Everything was dead in the movie.
It was such a wannabe and it obviously never succeeded with no story really being engaging.
Can't exactly give it a real grade but definitely no more than a C.

Spoiler heavy

I almost stopped watching twenty minutes in. I thought it was going the Crash route. Then it became mildly interesting thanks to Jessica Biel and her storyline. Her half of the film almost works. Aside from a couple of godawful line readings, she's the reason why the film is even watchable. She's giving it her most, but she's letdown by one atrocious script. Holy hell. If you like being spoon fed blunt dialog and if you like heavy handed and obvious symbolism then you've come to the right place (the last twenty minutes especially).

As for Forrest Whittaker's half, it's just a mess...except whenever Lisa Kudrow is on screen. She's only in the film for about five or six minutes though. If I put the entire chain of events in his storyline we get...

• Whittaker's character is a priest (which we don't learn until the end of the film).
• He falls in love with this beautiful woman (it's never explained why he could so easily give up the priesthood).
• They decide to get married.
• Immediately after they get married (literally minutes after) the woman is killed in a car accident due to his negligence (he was pointing a camera at her).
• In between some unknown amount of time he has a crisis in faith. I wonder why?
• He decides to try and kill himself but can't because of the Catholicism thing.
• He meets a man in the middle of his own crisis. She's a transgender (I think I got that right) who wants to become a woman, but is suicidal because of it. She's also a prostitute.
• He offers her $50,000 to shoot him in the heart, but is refused.
• He then meets Lisa Kudrow's character.
• The transgender prostitute steals his car, but is later found and she winds up shooting herself in the heart.
• He (Whittaker) falls into a deeper depression and winds up going back to the church.
• He then has a dream (?) in which his wife tells him that it's not his time yet.
• His story ends with him setting up a date with Kudrow's character.

Great, now I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Take his section out of the film, or explore it deeper, and you get a much better half. One that might have put this film over the top. Instead it doesn't work because it's just not interesting. It could've been though.

Biel's section is at least somewhat interesting with the father/daughter storyline mixed in with her comatose kid and her trying to find love. That's sounds horrible with how I just put that, but Biel is good enough here where you're willing to look past the silliness of it all. Well, until of course Ray Liotta's character gets buried in "powder blue" snow. Yes the snow was blue. And did we really need to see Liotta in heaven with her dead kid (yeah, he dies) where they fly a kite on the beach and dig a rose (that's Biel's name in the film...SYMBOLISM!) in the sand? This is all mixed in mind you with Whittaker's story so around this time we get his dream sequence as well. Three surrealist moments in an otherwise completely unsurrealist film. Did I mention the symbolism was heavy handed and obvious?

There's so much going on here and almost none of it works. It's a shame because the film's message is about having hope and what that means for different people, but there's almost nothing of substance here to back that up. The three actors try to elevate the material as best they can (Biel especially...I don't think I've made that clear), but the story is just pure shit. Maybe with a better writer/director (same person) this could've been something good. Instead it's a vaguely interesting mess.

*½

Heh, so many words and nothing on Biel's first naked scene

Because I wanted to review the movie as a whole and not just focus on the nudity (because I'm a serious film critic afterall )... although that's why I checked it out to begin with. Another way you could sum up my review I guess is that if you go on to Google and find the clips of Biel naked, you've found the best parts of the film and it'll save you 100 minutes. The scene where she strips is really nothing to write home about though. Everything is in red and the color is blown out. The scene a few minutes later is better.

Looks like I just used my creepiness quota for the week.