Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 4/4/2013)

Early one Santiago morning, thirtysomethings Francisco Pérez-Bannen and Paola Giannini pack children Santi Ahumada and Emiliano Freifeld into a car in order to travel north to find the parcel of land that Pérez-Bannen's father had purchased years before. Giannini has misgivings about coming along, as her relationship with her husband is clearly fraying and Ahumada is just old enough to pick up on the tension between her parents without fully understanding it. Consequently, there are long silences punctuated only by terse exchanges in Spanglish and the efforts of Ahumada and her seven year-old brother to amuse themselves with songs and guessing games.

Eventually, they pull over to leave some food for a man who seems unable to leave the spot where his wife and child perished in a crash that he may well have caused. Although they are curious about his motives, Ahumada and Freifeld ask no questions and it is only when they stop at a service station that Pérez-Bannen reveals that he is contemplating growing avocados on his father's property. Once again, Ahumada takes the information at face value, as she does the `chance' meeting with Giannini's old friend Jorge Becker and his son, Axel Dupré. She briefly experiences a sense of panic and the thrill of being independent when she emerges from the bathroom and cannot see the car. But she is soon restored to the back seat and is only vaguely aware of the contrasting impact that meeting Becker has had on Pérez-Bannen and Giannini's moods.

Perhaps in an attempt to get back at his spouse, Pérez-Bannen picks up teenage hitchers Belén Celedón and Ana López, whose banal chatter make a deep impression on Ahumada, who has clearly led something of a sheltered existence. Giannini evidently disapproves, however, and the girls are soon dropped off, prompting Pérez-Bannen to make another feeble attempt to recapture his youth by stealing fruit from a roadside tree. He is shot at by the owner for his trouble, which proves to have been in vain, as Giannini pronounces the contraband inedible. Suddenly frustrated by proceedings, Freifeld demands they go to the seaside, but he is mollified by a night in a motel.

Exhausted by the first day's events, everyone sleeps well and, next morning, Ahumada asks her father to teach her to drive. However, as she sits behind the wheel, she overhears her mother complaining that their housekeeper has been stealing from them. But the mundanities of daily life are soon forgotten when they stop for a river swim. Ahumada is intrigued by a boy on a motorbike mooching around on the opposite bank. But the idyllic moment soon passes when Pérez-Bannen traps Giannini's finger in the hatchback door and they are forced to halt a few miles further on when a bag falls off the roof-rack and Ahumada and Freifeld have to hang on to it until they can make a proper repair.

The next stop is also enforced, as the car gets stuck in a shallow riverbed and they have to be towed clear by Becker in his VW van. They decide to camp for the night and everyone seems to be having fun paddling in the stream and eating baked apples from the campfire. But Ahumada is suspicious of the way Giannini is cosying up to Becker and is decidedly uncomfortable at being made to sing when they are joined by some strangers with a guitar. Pérez-Bannen is equally peeved by Giannini's behaviour and he tries to upstage Becker by telling a rambling anecdote about the time he nearly drowned while swimming with some surfers and recalls the feeling of his spirit re-entering his body as he sank in the waves.

Unable to sleep, Ahumada sneaks out of the tent and thinks she can hear her mother having sex with Becker. But she cannot be sure and pretends to be asleep when Giannini slips back into her sleeping bag without waking her husband. Next morning, they rise to find some pigs rootling around in their leftovers and, when she is sent to wash some pans in the river, Ahumada is disturbed to see Becker kissing Giannini on the forehead. However, she is soon distracted by Pérez-Bannen asking her to steer, as the grown-ups push the car back on to the road and she is delighted with his praise for doing such a good job. As they bid farewell to Becker and Dupré, they hear on the radio that a youth has been killed on his motorbike and Giannini wonders if it was the boy they saw by the river.

Still seemingly some distance from their destination, Pérez-Bannen announces that he is going to rent an apartment and Giannini is furious with him taking such a momentous decision without consulting her. She strides off into the desert and darkness has fallen by the time they find her. She reluctantly gets back inside and silence reigns until they stop for the night. Ahumada sits outside with her father because they cannot sleep, but eventually clamber into the back seat when it gets too cold. The following morning, they reach grandfather's plot. But it's in the middle of nowhere and nobody seems particularly impressed, as they look around. Seemingly united again, albeit perhaps briefly, the parents lash the excited kids to the roof-rack and drive off into the distance.

Magnificently photographed on Super 16mm by Bárbara Alvarez, this is a compelling odyssey that poignantly captures a young girl's growing awareness that everything is about to change forever. Often approximating her point of view, the camera also frequently fixes on Santi Ahumada's face in extreme close-up, as she tries to fathom what is going on between her parents and how Jorge Becker fits into the equation. Although he is given less to do, fellow non-professional first-timer Emiliano Freifeld also captures the mix of trust and resentment that finds echo in the passive-aggressive exchanges between Pérez-Bannen and Giannini, who blame each other and their offspring for the fact that they are trapped in an ennui that appears much more difficult to escape than either had envisaged.

By withholding the plot from Ahumada and Freifeld, Sotomayor was able to ensure that their reaction to each development was totally natural. But, splendid though the performances are, it is Sotomayor's willingness to slow the pace and resist melodramatic contrivance in relying on gesture and expression that makes this so effective and laudable and immediately instals her among the most exciting film-makers in Latin America, alongside Argentine Lucrecia Martel, Brazilian Suzana Amaral, Peruvian Claudia Llosa and fellow Chilean Valeria Sarmiento.

Having appeared in three films directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan - The Small Town (1997), Clouds of May (1999) and Distant  (2002) - it's perhaps inevitable that Muzaffer Özdemir's first film behind the camera should bear traces of the master's distinctive technique. Indeed, Home bears a passing similarity to Clouds of May, in which a film director returns to his native region to enlist the help of family and friends with his latest project. But Özdemir proves himself an apt pupil in ably conveying his feelings for his fast-changing homeland in this majestically photographed and laudably unsentimental odyssey.

Taken ill during a camping trip with friends, Istanbul architect Kanbolat Görkem Arslan consults his doctor, who advises him to take a complete break from the stresses of modern life. Partner Muzaffer Özdemir suggests Arslan returns to his childhood village of Gümüshane near the Black Sea coast in north-eastern Turkey, as he could not only recuperate in familiar surroundings, but also bring back photographs of the local water mills that they could adapt for future projects.

Having not been home in many years, Arslan is surprised to find that the family home has been taken over by the new imam, who is much more worldly than his predecessor. So he goes to stay with sister Pinar Ünsal and her husband Muhammet Uzuner and starts investigating how the hydroelectric schemes have impacted upon the landscape and is dismayed to discover that waterways have been polluted, traditional bridges have been replaced with soulless concrete structures and that dwellings have been allowed to fall into disrepair.

His mood is scarcely improved when Uzuner questions whether one man can do anything to arrest progress  So he goes to the family farm in the mountains, where neighbour Ismail Ergün is making a success of an environmentally friendly fish farm and Arslan enjoys his like-minded company. However, even here, the customer gets to have the final word and, while Arslan is out walking, he strays into a forbidden area and has to beat a hasty retreat when he is approached by a couple of stern-looking men. Nature continues to provide compensations, though, and he finds a spectacular waterfall and takes a series of pictures. But, when he calls Özdemir that night, he inform him that even this is under threat of being dammed and he doubts the validity of publishing a book of his photographs as the speed of change in the region is so rapid.

Returning from the, Arslan is informed by village elder Coskun Çetinalp that a couple of police intelligence officers wish to see him. He is forced to surrender his passport and despairs at being considered a terrorist threat in the place of his birth, whose spoliation is symbolised by the closing shot of the countryside scarred by the workings of an abandoned gold mine.

Notwithstanding a sincere performance by Arslan and the occasional encounter with like-minded souls wearied by the unstoppable creep of supposed progress, this is essentially a travelogue celebrating the beauty of rural Turkish. As sound designer Onan Karagözoglu combines natural noises with wisps of Mozart and Schumann, cinematographer Ilker Berke allows his camera to rove across spectacular vistas in measured pans that inspire both awe and a concern for the preservation of the landscape and the communities that depend upon it. Moreover, the film generates a deep frustration with modern society's stupefying short-termism and a despair that traditional houses, bridges and even mosques are being replaced with soulless structures that often serve sinister purposes in enabling police surveillance and restricting freedom of movement. But Özdemir always seems more concerned with the look and pace of his visuals than any wider socio-political concerns, although it is impossible not to feel indignation at the creeping consumerism and reckless depletion of resources that is summed up in the opening image of a dead sheep having its collar removed and washed so that it can be reused, while the carcass is left to the marauding flies.

The Turkish characters are very much ciphers in writer-director Marcus Markou's feature debut, Papadopoulos & Sons, a well-meaning, if formulaic migrant comedy that seeks to broker a rapprochement between the owners of a couple of Mediterranean fast-food joints on a suburban London high street. Given the current crisis in Cyprus, this couldn't have been released at a more topical time. But, despite the energy of a bullish cast, this slight  recessional saga has few satirical barbs or cultural insights to offer, which is all the more disappointing as so few British films deal with the country's numerous ethnic enclaves and this could have been improved considerably with a couple more drafts of the screenplay.

European Entrepreneur of the Year Stephen Dillane is about to fulfil his dream. The plans for his shopping plaza have been approved and the banks have agreed to fund the project. But he is too preoccupied to notice the growing severity of the financial crisis and suddenly finds himself in debt to the tune of £300 million and is forced to sell the luxury home he shares with children Georgia Groome, Frank Dillane and Thomas Underhill, and loyal housekeeper Selina Cadell. Despite the efforts of priggish accountant Ed Stoppard and his more sympathetic colleague Cosima Shaw, Dillane is left with nothing but the deeds to the Greek fish-and-chip where he grew up. However, he is unable to sell this without the permission of estranged older brother George Corraface, who sees Dillane's fall from grace as a chance to rebuild some burnt bridges.

Naturally, Groome, Dillane Jr and Underhill take a shine to their roguish uncle, who refuses to sell his father's shop and persuades the sibling he brought up alone after their parents died that his best chance of getting back on his feet lies with redecorating the old place and firing up the fryers to make an honest living. Old friends Jimmy Roussounis and Vangelis Christodoulou rally to the cause and Cadell keeps the tea coming during the inevitable `turning things round' montage that shows Dillane resign himself to his situation and rise to Corraface's challenge.

The disapproval of kebab shop owner George Savvides steels Dillane's resolve and the customers soon start rolling in. He also realises that he is falling for Shaw, who has more than a merely professional interest in her client. But Dillane Jr needs a pep talk from his father to convince him that they are not doomed to a life of penury, while Groome's budding romance with Savvides's son Cesare Taurasi ramps up the tension between the rivals. However, Dillane has learnt from his experiences that cut-throat tactics are not always the best and, following an inevitable tragedy, the action closes with the kebab and chip emporia sealing a pact of peaceful co-existence with a Zorba-like dance on the pavement.

Always an engaging actor (who has a touch of Dirk Bogarde about him, if anybody is thinking of making a biopic), Dillane keeps this entirely predictable picture from collapsing under the weight of cliché, caricature and inconsequence. His romance with Shaw is wholly unconvincing, while his workaholic character's struggle to reconnect with his kids is undermined by the hesitancy of juvenile co-stars who include his own son. However, Dillane ably captures the self-protective taciturnity of a man who has been hurt by the racist taunts of his youth and the loss of his wife, while his byplay with the lustily extroverted Corraface is spikily spirited and introduces an intriguing clan/class notion that is unfortunately tackled with a similar superficiality to the other potentially interesting issues. Even the frothiest British romp in the 1950s and 60s contained a modicum of social critique and it's a shame that Markou opted to go down the sitcomedic rather than the acerbic realist route. But let's hope that he inspires film-makers from other communities to tell their own stories.

An off-screen Turk sparks the action in George Isaac's London crime saga, All Things to All Men, which seeks to demonstrate that villainy and violence are rife on either side of the law. Slickly shot by Howard Atherton and crisply edited by Eddie Hamilton, this is the first outing as writer-director for Isaac, whose credits as a producer include Menhaj Huda's Kidulthood (2006). Yet, while the story slots together efficiently enough, the effect is somewhat mechanical and a similar perfunctoriness inflects the performances of an ostensibly excellent, but evidently underwhelmed cast.

Maverick thief Toby Stephens steals a consignment of diamonds and leaves them with fence Gil Darnell. However, he is murdered by `merchant' Gabriel Byrne, who resents having a rogue operative on his turf. Unfortunately, the execution attracts the attention of Scotland Yard detective Rufus Sewell, who is something of a loose cannon himself, as rookie Leo Gregory quickly discovers when he is teamed with Sewell and his childhood pal, Terence Maynard.

They bust Byrne's drug-dealing son, Pierre Mascolo, in order to ensure his co-operation in the purloining of some government bonds. But, while he is out for revenge, Stephens is reluctant to get involved with Byrne, especially as he is staying with Darnell's widow, Elsa Pataky. But Byrne makes him an offer he can't refuse and Sewell reports to police commissioner David Schofield and attorney general James Frain that the trap has been baited. However, they are less concerned with nabbing the crooks than securing their own share of the bond blag and provide Sewell with the security codes for the vault to facilitate things for Stephens and Byrne's trusted sidekick, Julian Sands.

Yet, while the job goes smoothly, Sands tries to shoot Stephens as soon as they return to their hideout and a frantic car chase across the nocturnal capital ensues before Stephens can reclaim the loot from Sands's crumpled vehicle. Furious at losing his right-hand man, Byrne informs Sewell that he intends liquidating Stephens. However, Gregory has begun to suspect that Sewell and Maynard are not as honest as he is (he joined the force after his father was murdered) and when he discovers that Sewell never arrested MC Harvey, the bagman used to ensnare Mascolo, even Maynard comes to realise that his long-term partner is deceiving him.

A meeting in an abandoned building seals Maynard's fate and Sewell asks ex-crooked cop Ralph Brown to dispose of Gregory. But things begin to unravel, as it becomes clear that Sewell is in desperate need of some quick cash to meet a debt and prevent his liaison with a high-class prostitute from being publicised by an anonymous Turkish mobster.

Alfred Hitchcock would have called such a tangential plot device a `macguffin'. But he would also have injected a good deal more suspense into proceedings that clunk along between artful views of familiar London landmarks. The finale at Battersea Power Station is particularly devoid of tension, as Sewell, Byrne, Stephens and Gregory come face to face for a resoundingly anti-climactic showdown. Isaac may have been trying to impart a British spin upon neo-noirs like Curtis Hanson's LA Confidential (1994) and Michael Mann's Heat (1995).  But, while it eschews some of the leerier antics that have demeaned so many recent BritCrime flicks, his screenplay is held together by muddled contrivance and is stuffed with clichés, archetypes and platitudes. Yet the biggest flaw here is the superficial characterisation, which makes it impossible to care what happens to any of these greedy, self-serving, duplicitous and backstabbing scoundrels.

The plot is every bit as convoluted in Philipp Stölzl's The Expatriate, which marks something of a departure from the fact-based mountaineering adventure North Face (2008) and the fanciful romantic biopic Goethe! (2010). But, while it is equally prone to cross-cutting to touristy vistas and is every bit as reliant on a specious macguffin, this intricate thriller (which is also known as Erased) is much more dextrously assembled and played with considerably more conviction.

American Aaron Eckhart works for a security company run by Neil Napier in the Belgian city of Antwerp. He and assistant Debbie Wong have been commissioned to find flaws in various top-range devices and Napier seems delighted with their progress. Bidding his usual cheery farewell to porter Nick Alachiotis, Eckhart goes to prize day at teenage daughter Liana Liberato's school. However, he arrives late and lets it be known that he disapproves of her friendship with Arab youth, Yassine Fadel. She sulks and wishes he had left her with the grandfather who had been looking after her since her mother died, but Eckhart assures her that everything will be fine once they get to know each other again.

Next morning, however, as Eckhart pops into the office while driving Liberato to school, he discovers that the premises have been completely emptied and that all traces of the company have been wiped from the computer and telephone systems. Moreover, as he tries to find out what is going on, ex-colleague Alexander Fehling bundles him into a car at gunpoint and orders him to drive. Escaping after slamming on the brakes and snapping his abductor's neck in the subsequent fight, Eckhart purloins some money and a railway station locker key and heads to Brussels with his bemused daughter in tow.

No one at the head office of the multinational Eckhart thought he had been working for has heard of Napier or his organisation. But they still want him out of the way and the station is crawling with cops when they arrive back in Antwerp. However, Eckhart manages to retrieve a dossier from the locker and this leads him to the city morgue, where Wong and other erstwhile workmates have been stored following a spate of accidental deaths. As they leave, Eckhart and Liberato are pursued by a gun-toting Alachiotis and Liberato is wounded in the arm. However, she persuades Fadel and his people trafficking brother Fabrice Boutique to find them somewhere to lay low until Eckhart can figure out what is going on.

He confesses to Liberato that he used to be a CIA assassin and she curses him for landing her in such a mess. But, while going through the documents in Fehling's file, Eckhart realises that Napier has been working with his old CIA handler, Olga Kurylenko, and deduces that she is on the payroll of billionaire industrialist Garrick Hagon, whose company has been profiting from conflicts sparked around the world by illegal arms deals. Moreover, he learns that Kurylenko has just flown in from Langley to liaise with Hagon's scheming factotum, David Bark-Jones, who is quite prepared to let kidnapper Eric Godon harm Liberato in order to force Eckhart into handing over the incriminating evidence. However, he has a trick up his sleeve to ensure the trade-off goes with a bang.

As is often the case in thrillers of this sort, so much space is devoted to exposition and chase sequences that there is insufficient time to develop character. But screenwriter Arash Amel gives Aaron Eckhart and Liana Liberato plenty to work with as the father with a shady past and the rancorous daughter just beginning to realise what kind of man her mother married. The villains are less well rounded, however, with Kurylenko struggling with the particularly thankless role of the traitor realising she is out of her depth. Moreover, the scenario itself will seem familiar to those au fait with the Liam Neeson vehicles Taken (2008) and Unknown (2011). But Stölzl keeps things moving and, while this may seem a touch conventional after the Bourne movies, it remains eminently watchable, thanks largely to Eckhart and Liberato bickering and bonding their way through a conspiracy that touches on a multitude of hot button issues without exploring a single one in any meaningful detail.

The action is markedly less sophisticated in Mark O'Connor's King of the Travellers, which takes plot snippets from William Shakespeare's Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, as well as Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront (1954) and Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972) to enliven a drama that frequently feels like a cross between Ian Palmer and Leo Maguire's respective documentaries Knuckle (2011) and Gypsy Blood (2012) and Jean-Charles Hue's Yéniche saga, The Lord's Ride (2010). Played by a cast containing several Travellers, this is rarely on a par with O'Connor's Dublin gang thriller, Between the Canals (2011). But it has a raw potency that has noticeably been missing from much of the so-called realist cinema currently being produced in Britain.

Troubled by nightmares of his father Black Martin (David Murray) being gunned down at the end of a trotting race, twentysomething John Paul Moorehouse (John Connors) convinces himself that the rival Power clan was responsible for the crime. So, with the connivance of adopted brother Mickey the Bags (Peter Coonan), John Paul arranges a bare-knuckle bout with Davy Power (David Collins) to establish who is King of the Travellers. Uncle Francis (Michael Collins), who became the head of the Moorehouse family on his brother's death, is against the contest, as it will play into the hands of local landowner Mick Lafferty (Mick Foran), who has enlisted the support of councillor Noel Conroy (Stephen Jones) and Garda sergeant Tom Dunne (Frank Melia) to get both the Moorehouses and the Powers moved off disputed terrain on the edge of his country estate.

Egged on by brothers Eamon (Packy Lee) and Kylie (Thomas Collins), John Paul goes ahead with the fight and wins. However, he bumps into old classmate Winnie Power (Carla McGlynn), whom he has not seen since her father Puc (James Reilly) moved the family away in the weeks following Black Martin's demise. Instantly smitten, John Paul arranges to meet up with Winnie and they revisit the tree where they carved their names as kids and the den where they used to play in the woods. However, while under the influence of magic mushrooms (that make him see a talking ladybird), John Paul also has a vision of his father's ghost urging him to avenge his murder and the tensions between the clans are exacerbated when Mickey sets off fireworks in the middle of the Power camp during a hoolie.

Stung by Francis and his brother Paddy (Paddy Collins) taunting him that he is a foundling who can never be a true Moorehouse, Mickey arranges a fight with Jonjo `Freckleface' Power (John Hughie Collins) and is praised by his mother Nell (Mary Reilly) when he returns home triumphant. But the roistering annoys Lafferty, who sends his thug Scully (Stephen Clinch) to tar and feather Kylie as a punishment for trespassing on his land. Mickey is also murdered by a kid from Dublin (Barry Keoghan) at the local horse fair and John Paul vows to make the Powers pay.

Brushing aside Winnie's protests, he confronts Puc. However, he is informed that the Powers had nothing to do with the deaths of either Black Martin or Mickey the Bags and John Paul suddenly realises that Francis, who had ruined his chances of becoming an Olympic boxer in order to concentrate on bare-knuckle contests, had also arranged his father's killing. Storming back to the camp, John Paul drowns Francis in a trough beneath a statue of the Virgin Mary and is riding out to accost Lafferty when he is shot and looks into the eyes of the distraught Winnie, as Sergeant Dunne takes Lafferty and Scully into custody.

There's no denying that John Connors is a limited actor. But, with his chubby cheeks and mournful eyes, he cuts a genuinely tragic figure, as he battles to overcome the pride, prejudice, deceit and cupidity that have shaped his destiny. His flirtation with Carla McGlynn may lack the charm of Sylvester Stallone's courtship of Talia Shire in Rocky (1976), but there is palpable choked passion in his variation on Marlon Brando's famous `contender' speech. Moreover, his restraint stands in stark contrast to the mugging of professionals Peter Coonan and Michael Collins and the stilted declamation of the older female characters. But these shortcomings, along with the predictability of the storyline and absence of any trenchant socio-cultural insight, are just about atoned for by David Grennan's laudably unromanticised views of the muddily verdant locations in Dublin and Galway, John Reynold's rollicking score and O'Connor's bold bid to update the themes and motifs of an old-fashioned Western to recessional Ireland.

Finally, this week, documentarist Yaron Zilberman makes a touching transition to features with A Late Quartet, a measured drama about a cleft chamber orchestra that is full of beautiful music and skillfully modulated performances. Yet, for all its prudent insights into the collaborative nature of life and art and its gentle debunking of musical cliché, this often feels as though it has been adapted from a stage play and only really comes to life when Frederick Elmes's camera lingers on the instruments or the fingers of the stars, who all learned to play in order to make the action as authentic as possible.

Twenty-five years have passed since cellist Christopher Walken and violinist Mark Ivanir formed The Fugue, a New York-based string quartet that is completed by second violinist Philip Seymour Hoffman and his viola-playing wife, Catherine Keener. Plans are afoot for a special performance of Beethoven's String Quartet No.14 in C-sharp Minor, Op. 131 to mark the anniversary. But Walken has just been diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease and is keen to retire immediately rather than soldier on and have his powers diminish in public.

Rather than uniting his colleagues, however, his announcement prompts Hoffman to protest that he is tired of playing second fiddle to Ivanir, whose conservative approach to the repertoire is bereft of the passion that Hoffman feels distinguishes between technical proficiency and great art.  He is hurt, however, when Keener sides with Ivanir and exacts his revenge by sleeping with his jogging partner, Liraz Charhi. But Ivanir proves himself to be every bit as egotistical and libidinous by embarking upon an affair with Hoffman and Keener's rebellious cellist daughter, Imogen Poots, who deeply resents her parents for devoting their time to The Fugue instead of her.

As Walken watches helplessly from the sidelines, he continues to mourn the recent passing of his mezzo-soprano wife Anne Sofie von Otter (who is seen singing in flashback) and consults with doctor Madhur Jaffrey about a course of treatment that could slow the onset of his condition. However, the others have already started trying to lure Nina Lee away from a rival ensemble led by Wallace Shawn and things look set to come to a head when they gather at Walken's apartment for a final rehearsal.

As one would expect, the music is sublime, with excerpts from Bach, Haydn and Strauss complementing the Beethoven, which is rendered with exquisite dexterity by the Brentano String Quartet. But, while this is nowhere near as corny as Dustin Hoffman's directorial bow, Quartet, it is still very much a melodrama masquerading as a work of highbrow significance. Zilberman and co-scenarist Seth Grossman make a great show of focusing on the process of making music and the difference between playing and performing. But they overdo the references to harmony in demonstrating that these refined artistes are just as prone to lust, envy, ambition and bitterness as any mere mortal.

This is not to say, however, that the acting is not extraordinary, with Walken casting off three decades of screen eccentricity to create a character of integrity and sensitivity whose melancholic acceptance of his fate is more inspirational than poignant. Hoffman is also typically superb, while Keener shoots him looks of seething detestation before engaging in a lacerating tête-à-tête with Poots. But the attempts to define existence in terms of music theory for beginners soon become as wearisome as the shots of a snowy Manhattan that are intended to reinforce the frostiness of the once-warm relationships.