This is an example of Anthony Minghella pretending he is Stephen Poliakoff, and failing miserably. This film is straight from the false world of 'luvviedom', i.e. the imaginary world in which the luvvies of the film scene live in their bubble and try to remember what real people were when they once knew them. Minghella is so desperate to put some 'real people' into this phoney saga that he drags in some hapless Bosnian characters, though even they are not convincing, despite the best efforts of the ever-brilliant Juliette Binoche with her perfect Serbo-Croat accent and a superb first performance by the young Rafi Gavron as her son. This film is so contrived and idiotic in its attempts to be profound that it is a lesson in how not to write a script. Poliakoff can pull off these rambling associations of disparate characters who come together in ultimate profundity, because he has some magical ability to make it all mean something in the end, but Minghella simply cannot do it. He is too far away, on some planet of his own, and all his characters are merely theoretical, and so far from real that the result is a really horrible joke. Jude Law delivers another commanding performance, showing himself once again a master of the screen, while Vera Farmiga as a Russian prostitute brings the only other touch of life to this dead production with her hysterically funny and inspired cameo performance. The worst thing of all about the film is the cold, deathly, and repulsive Robin Wright Penn, who is not only unwatchable as an actress, but her character in the story is so despicable that one doesn't know which is worse, the actress or the part. This entire project was flawed from the start, and should never have passed go. If Minghella wants to commit professional suicide, this is the way to do it. He should meet some people in the real world fast, before he drowns in a cesspit of utterly gormless goo. What a ridiculous waste of time!