Despite having been a fan of Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney so long it actually makes me feel old (and, in the case of Hoffman, I’ve genuinely almost grown bored of him in his recent work lol), I couldn’t help putting this off and off so much did it resemble your typical indie “gem”. This aversion was almost immediately turned off by the beautiful series of random shots that open the movie. The look, the cinematography of this film is really gorgeous in places, bright blue skies and wide angles, the clean wide world ever present around the filthy reality the protagonists are being faced with, that reality we all tend to kick under the rug as much as possible, that we all grow old and die in frequently humiliating and degrading ways.

I don’t know if it needs to be nearly 2 hours long – it does wear a little thin in the end and could easily do what it does in closer to 90 minutes (shut up, I haven’t mentioned length in ages :P), but Hoffman and Linney are perfect – Hoffman in particular is the way I like to see him best after the costume and make-up ridden roles in Capote and gag Charlie Wilson’s War. It’s a subject that hasn’t been covered quite so well before and one that you kind of need to confront yourself with from time to time to stop shallow preoccupations swallowing you entirely.