It may be unfair to judge this film based on only watching the first 3/4 of it, but we could only take so much punishment as an audience. The film presented itself as possessing intelligent dialogue that was radical and thought-provoking. Well, it was thought-provoking. My thought was, what is this *&%$? The characters were intelligent and their dialogue and conversations were coherent. Dialogue was striking as somewhere in the neighborhood of graduate students discussing and philosophizing all types of different issues. Such would seem to be a foundation for a stimulating dialogue-driven film. In a word: No.<br /><br />Here are my principle complaints:<br /><br />Plot: None discernable. People are just sitting around philosophizing about ontology, pop culture, and a variety of other subjects. Mind you, it's just philosophizing with clever little comments about what so-and-so said or so-and-so thought. A movie doesn't really need a plot, but it's quite beneficial if -something- does happen.<br /><br />Characters: Annoying. Well-educated, but they are the type of people who sit around and solve the worlds problems instead of doing something to solve the worlds problems. They are all well-educated, but no one seems to have a soul or any real existential reason for existing. Their lives seem to hold no real purpose. Striking as a bit spoiled and lazy. No character struck me as possessing any humanity. No soul, no spark of life, just a bunch of people talking about things that they really don't care about. Extreme deconstructrionism seemed to rule their existence. I.e., they didn't seem to feel that the world had any meaning. I found no characters to elicit any sort of empathy from me and I can be very clinical at times.<br /><br />Basic deal: If you want to catch the essence of what this film could have been, secretly videotape a close-knit group of first year college grad students toegether that are studying the humanities and you'll have something more interesting than this film. These people have created radical theses that no normal person would conceive and supported them logically numerous times in numerous papers. The world has little meaning to them. The humor completely failed when it was attempted as the affect of the actors was so flat. Deconstructionism as an idea is worthwhile, but watching a movie with characters that are seemingly obsessed with the notion and seemingly no emotion is not my idea of a good time. I may have missed some of their colorful allusions and jokes about famous cultural figures, but ultimately, the problem of flat affect and character ennui bored me half to death. I've stopped two movies because they were so awful. This movie, and Captain Ron. I'm a reasonably well-educated, open-minded person that appreciates good dialogue. I've enjoyed countless films that focused primarily on dialogue and enjoy classic literature as well. Movies included Secrets and Lies, Gosford Park, Sneakers, Sense and Sensibility, and Howard's End. This movie struck me as being a pretender to such a genre. It was not as well acted or written as any of these other films, nor did I find it remotely interesting.<br /><br />It seems to be hit or miss, but watch out people, this film is all about dialogue without any other focus and if you don't like a bunch of self-absorbed, spoiled philosophizers talking about how nothing means anything, then this movie may have as little meaning for you as it did for me.