But I just didn't. Perhaps I'd read one too many okay reviews, but I had such high hopes for this after High Art, that I found it a little, well, disappointing.<br /><br />Fascinating, but disappointing.<br /><br />I'm the biggest Fraces McDormand fan out there, she's ALWAYS great in<br /><br />everything she does, and she pretty much held my attention here as well. If the story had been more hers, it would've really set sail, but there's a plot about her son (Christian Bale, American Pyscho and Little Women) and his fiance (Kate<br /><br />Beckinsdale, Pearl Harbor) that just doesn't work. Perhaps it's all the odd<br /><br />accents- Bale is a brit doing a 'new yawk' accent, Beckinsdale is a brit doing a 'standard American', Natasha McElhone (Truman Show) is a brit doing an<br /><br />indecipherable middle eastern accent, and Allesandra Nivola (Face Off) is an<br /><br />American doing a British accent. Phew.<br /><br />If you sense something a little 'odd' during this movie, it's that every sentence feels inauthentic, because there are certain words that all the actors doing<br /><br />accents simply can't pronounce that well. It seems picky, but it has the<br /><br />cumulative effect of feeling like you're watching a school play, and it takes you out of the story.<br /><br />The story, by the way, has a great premise in it. The straight up tight son coming to stay with his promiscuous liberal mother- who seduces his fiance. Very<br /><br />Greek. I just wish it had delved a little deeper, and that Bale and Beckinsdale were either more fully developed characters, or in the film less.<br /><br />But I have to say, it was worth seeing for Frances McDormand alone. She really lights up a screen whenever she's given a chance. <br /><br />I'd give this a 6 out of 10.