One dumb website calls the film "uneven" and compares it to Todd Solondz' Happiness, which is nothing at all like this film. It amazes me what critics miss. I can't disagree more, since this is one of the best plotted and tightly woven films I've seen. It's incredibly even. To reduce this film to a "search for happiness" is fairly simplistic, but it's more about how our actions can impact others, and more importantly, how they can't. There are certain things that are out of our control. Life is unfair. Not everything ties up into a little bow. There is no reason for this because that is the reason.
The film does an excellent job with its use of symbolism, where moments are brought out naturally, and not forced upon us via way of some melodramatic score. The dialogue is also insightful and flows naturally. Metaphors appear but they appear as they would in life, not like in that terrible film The Hours, where water is flowing beneath the bed that holds a crying pregnant woman to a Philip Glass score. No dying gay men with AIDS jump out of windows in this one.The reason this film has not been given more attention is because it is so intelligent and doesn't dumb itself down. In a society that values Doprah's Book Club and The Hours, Crash, and Brokeback Mountain, what can one otherwise expect from a world of philistines? The fact that this film is not as well known and crap like the above films are is testimony to the unfairness in life--a point the film addresses well.
