SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

This is one of those movies that looks like it was developed from the Sundance workshops... and what do you know? Hallmarks of the category include female chauvinist perspectives, emasculated or violent male characters (if there are any men to speak of), long stagnant takes shot on digital video, and an aggressive tendency toward unresolved endings. This has most of them.And I don't care, because Tilda Swinton is plenty of reason to watch any movie. Even THE BEACH. Okay, I won't go that far. But she is pretty exciting. To paraphrase the old line, I'd pay to watch her go to the bathroom... and, in this movie, I get to. Several times. Be careful what you wish for, I guess. Not that I ever wanted that... alright, enough on this subject.Plus Amber Tamblyn, who far from sucks here, and Melissa Leo, who never gets enough to do in movies - though, Jesus, girl, you are racking up the films lately. I think Leo's made as many films in the last four years as she made her entire previous career - though, again, she usually doesn't get too many lines.Actually, Hilary Brougher raises this picture somewhat above its disadvantages through nuance, innuendo, and lack of blatancy, though this very ambiguity does ultimately queer the ending, as in, I don't really get what's going on with the shrink character when credits roll. Not that I need everything spelled out, but I need to know what language we're speaking. Perhaps Sudden Cutaway to Overexposed Window means something in Girrrlish.Maybe I need to bone up on my Independent Woman Filmmaker symbolism. Or maybe I need to shut up before I get slapped with a Thoughtless Human with Penis label and written into another script where men fail to make the world entirely comfortable for women.

Wow, what a movie! As most of the comments before, acting was superb, the story was well laid out, intelligently and without patronizing explanations. What I was really aware of this time- I am not one very sensitive to technique in general- was the way the film was shot and the resulting realistic feel. None of the "look at me I am using a hand held camera so people would think it's a documentary" but I had the constant feeling this was real. The scene where the two Cranes are at the party, the unselective sound made the scene fell like it was a real party, one where you have a hard time sorting out voices and conversation from the general din. The camera was slightly swaying sometimes and the light not perfectly chosen so you felt like you do in real life: not always in the best spot to witness life unraveling, which is a characteristic of most movies, where any viewer is sitting in first row. That gave the performances extra boost, extra credibility and made the viewer absorb the movie's content even more deeply.The scene in the bathroom at the ski trip is devastating, you can almost feel her physical and emotional pain and her conflicting emotions about the abortion, there for you to witness out of that sliver of space between door and doorjamb. Unforgettable. Too bad she is not getting an Oscar for it, but seldom Oscars are given to best actors, just best actors on the main circuit who made the movies at the right time to get the prize etc etc...If this is not worth a 10 what is? But definitely not for anyone, not for those who need special effects or to be blasted from the chair by action or violence... for a mature audience even though the message is about the kids the movie is for their parents, to change how sex is taught in school...

I watched it Saturday, along with all the special features. It was a tough movie. If you don't like indie film, you might have a hard time with it. If you do, it's an astonishing achievement. All the acting is uniformly excellent. I don't mean to undercut the obviously painstaking work Tilda Swinton did in creating her character......but this is Amber Tamblyn's movie. Period. Anyone who watched Joan Of Arcadia already knew she could act her heart out. But what she does here is nothing short of phenomenal. She gets every nuance of Stephanie --- someone VERY different from her own flaky, artsy hippie-chick personality --- absolutely right. There's not one minute of "acting" in her time on screen. I promise you that if you give yourself to this story you will not come out of it the same.And you will not soon forget it.

It's funny, at the average video store, it's really a hit or miss game - you can't tell anything by the cover art. Picking up random titles is something of a habit, some hit, most miss, and with some you really have to wonder if the people who released the film have actually watched it. Every so often, however, you get a very pleasant surprise, and Stephanie Daley is one of the reasons I love the movies. Hilary Brougher is an extraordinary talent, and experiencing the performances by some of the finest actors working today was inspiring.Spending an evening with this film was a breath of fresh air and a treat - thank you!