If Hal Hartley directed a cheesy '80s version of My Blueberry Nights and had Paul Thomas Anderson do the camerawork (Boogie Nights copies the opening shot almost exactly), it would probably turn out a lot like this. Maybe not quite as great as that sounds (to me anyway), but close enough...

An eccentric, sometimes erotic, always perceptive adult comedy. A unique, dreamy meditation on sexual longings.

The premise is novel, but the movie does EVERYTHING else wrong. The acting is so wooden that I can see why all five leads had stunted careers. The direction is utterly artless; the red motif and the Francophilia motif are so sloppily applied, distributed as haphazardly as the shots that go for actual artistic interest, and the music cued at such odd times that this feels exactly like a telefilm with intermittent swearing. Lantana has a similar premise with a MUCH better execution.

I dunno, there something about Rudolph... there's love in his films, a tenderness.

a film noir that doesn't have the energy to get off the couch and engage with the world. There's a stiffness and formality in the dialogue that's at odds with Rudolph's interest in the twisty hold sexual attraction has on people. It doesn't have a strong enough pulse to portray obsession. Contrived terseness is the overwhelming tone of the film. It needs heat. It has murmured discussions of heat instead.

Alan Rudolph sucks