One of Polanski's best films. All players give perhaps career-best performances; certainly Hugh Grant and Kristen Scott-Thomas have never been involved in anything of greater substance ('The English Patient' or no. And Peter Coyote is unsurpassed: weltschmerz has never been portrayed more effectively or intelligently. It is a study of different forms of human love, contemplating the distinction between that of physical desire and attraction, against something more fundamental. Special mention should be made of the theme music which, in my opinion, is Vangelis at his best, working superlatively in the context of the sea voyage setting.<br /><br />Here is perhaps testament to the notion that the best film can attain something approaching exquisite art: in capturing mere quotidian human experience, evoking something beyond. On paper this is a movie made about an obsessive love affair in early 90's Paris as recounted by one of the protagonists to an emotionally-confused englishman on an ocean voyage. But it seems so much more than the sum of its parts; it transcends and sublimates the premise of the storyline, the experiences of the characters.