Is it just me, or is this a really lifeless adaptation?

It's got a fantastic cast (well, and Rebecca Pidgeon), but the flat delivery and pacing and even the sound design give it a really lifeless quality, which isn't helped by the fact it's directed by Mamet, whose default setting is for bloodless, terse exchanges. The editing is really bad in places too: there's a scene where Dickie walks in, smiling and joking, then it immediately cuts to another shot where he's completely straight-faced and facing the other direction; it's just amateurish. I'm not hating for the sake of hating, it's just something that's really leaped out at me now that I'm watching it for the first time in mid-December 2016. I can only imagine what someone like Robert Altman (who achieved such wonders with Jeremy Northam in Gosford Park), or even Mike Leigh, who's turned out to be one of the masters of the period piece, might have done with it.