Film noir and melodrama cast a long shadow over Ira Sachs's look back at the rotting heart of the Fifties nuclear family, but his movie rarely breaks a sweat. Slow, deliberate, and russet to a fault, this quietly controlled chamber piece, based on a 1959 murder mystery by British writer and spy John Bingham, applies more surveillance than carnality to the couplings and decouplings of upstanding citizens in a Pacific Northwest suburb. The cast is top-drawer, if strangely muted: Chris Cooper is a drab company man seeking "true happiness" in the arms of a demure platinum blonde (Rachel McAdams) coveted by his best friend (Pierce Brosnan), but who can't bring himself to divorce his wife, the seemingly happy homemaker Pat (Patricia Clarkson). This perfectly presentable film lacks the passion and radical vision... More >>>