Undescribable Perfection

Great Film overall

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

I learned that this film was based on a Michael Cunningham novel after I'd seen it and I remembered how over-the-top and melodramatic I'd found one of his previous works, "The Hours". I had looked forward to that film because it featured some great actors, including Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore but I was disappointed because I thought that there was insufficient reason to care about the plight of the characters as the film progressed. I found the same with this film, in spite of excellent acting. I thought the nuanced explication of the characters' complex sexuality was very well-done, but I did not feel strongly enough about most of the characters to care. Consequently, I found much of the film unmoving. I didn't think the depth or the contours of the relationships among the three main leads was sufficiently established that one cared enough about Clare's (Robin Wright Penn) departure. I found the earlier parts of the film, during which Johnny's (Dallas Roberts) character and Bobby's (Colin Farrell) were becoming friends and were growing up, to be more interesting than the section in which they were adults.That said, as with "The Hours", the acting, this time from Colin Farrell, Sissy Spacek, and Robin Wright Penn was excellent. Farrell has shown himself in "Tigerland" and "In Bruges", in "Miami Vice" and "Phone Booth" to be a very versatile and capable actor and this film required a great deal of depth, for which Farrell was never found wanting. It truly was a magnificent performance. Sissy Spacek was fantastic. She seems born to act and that was no less true in this film, in which her suburban routine is upended by Bobby's openness. Robin Wright Penn oozes charisma and I thought she did that excellently here, transforming in the course of the film from a bohemian hipster to a hip mother. At the heart of her character was decency and love and I thought that essence remained constant through the film. My only critique of the acting was that I found Dallas Howard to be a bit passive and bland.I haven't read any of the books, but as with "The Hours", I found the film adaptation to be overly dramatic without giving me as a viewer sufficient reason to care about the emotional plight of the characters.

This is a story of love, a clear eyed study of love. And what a better way to take a fresh look at love than to see it laid out before you in a completely new way. Like seeing the earth from space, it is the same earth but you understand it from a whole new perspective. It can transform your understanding of it. I was also struck with the time span, from childhood, through the formation and coalescing of permanent significant relationships and a look toward their future. All done with an honesty and clarity that is refreshing -- speak of "clarity of vision", this author had it and the actors brought it to life. Within a single line of dialog you could often see two or three changes of emotion passing over the actors' faces -- spectacular. The music only intensified of beauty of this dance. I think the author had such clarity of vision and was so true to what he was writing that his creation provides a true seed for myriad contemplations on what love is. Bobby learned the 'clarity of vision' in his youth. The first 3 scenes lay out the fundamentals: (1) It's just love, nothing to fear, (2) There's nothing to be afraid of in this whole pretty world. I'm here and (3) detachment -- I'm missing everything. There's always more, pal. And that is what he lived. All the deaths and changes and setbacks he had to let go of, but he is always reaching out to others with his love so he is always in an environment where there is love around him. These are profound, good and truly spiritual lessons to learn, and see how they hold true throughout a life. Great work.

A Home at the End of the World (2004)This is such an idealistic and yet realistic tale, set in real places, with real joys and tragedies, it will certainly get under your skin. I can see that some might find it maudlin, or there might be a sense of playing loose with the rules, but for me there are no rules when it comes to being as good as you can be, and there is a long distance from deeply felt to maudlin. This is deeply felt.And very well acted and written. All of the principles are disarming at times, they are so convincing. And it really is a big beautiful world when you do your best to make the most of it. Don't miss this one, and keep an open mind. It grows as it goes, and the earlier fragments gel and the story streamlines and solidifies, but it really needs those earlier pieces to give it depth, and to set it in time.

*A SPOILER At The End Of The World* Young Bobby loses slowly, one by one, his older brother, mother, and father, and is adopted by his best friend, Jonathan Glover,'s family, where he is welcomed almost like a second son by Jonathan's parents and... more, by Jonathan, a fact that his mother (Sissy Spacek) can't fail to notice.Cue a few years later; Bobby (Colin Farrell) is now an adult, working in the Glovers' bakery, and decides to go visit Jonathan (Dallas Roberts), who now has come out, in NYC. He meets him and his friend Clare (Robin Wright Penn), who is hopelessly in love with Jonathan, and the three end up forming an unconventional kind of family...I haven't read the book yet, but this movie is clearly one of a kind, with the magnetic and trustful performance of Colin Farrell as the center; he nails perfectly a very difficult character, which hasn't lost his idealism, his goodness and the ability to love the world, even if it doesn't deserve it.Warner Independent scores another 10/10 (after the one for 'Around The Bend') for this movie. Clearly 2004 was a great year for them! I hope 'We Don't Live Here Anymore' is as good as these two movies have been...A Home At The End Of The World: 10/10.