should i see this?

(...at the risk of being smashed into jelly, I will reply) Well, if you enjoy films with complex characters, plot twists, and surprise endings that may or may not be happy ones, this film is definitely worth a look. I just finished watching the DVD with its special commentary, and there's much built-in ambiguity (my big word for the week) to chew on long after you've viewed the film. As you've probably already read, the acting is uniformly first-rate, especially in the case of Robin Wright Penn, who plays a deeply-disturbed woman who's life is circling the drain. She's a master at misrepresenting herself, a trait aided by her creppy self-delusion. For some hotly-debated reasons, she turns a Muslim cab driver into her made-to-order patsy for what follows.

Lots of reviews have mentioned how the film goes wildly off-track in the third act, and how the reasons put forth to explain her actions are so blantantly unconvincing. I personally have a low threshhold for implausibility, and I'm usually the first in a group to point out the Oh-give-me-a-break! moments in a movie. But I don't understand all the wailing about how so many elements of the story "simply don't work". Given Penn's character's psychosis, anything was possible (Maybe it's the great acting that makes me not care). As far as this movie being a socio-political comment on the aftermath of 9/11, I think most critics got that wrong as well. While those horrific events are essential to the story, they serve more as a device or backdrop, and in my opinion were not intended to be the main focus of the drama. To me, this is primarily a psychological thriller about a sad twisted individual, not an exploitation of tragedy others feel it is.

A warning: the ending IS unpleasant and disturbing. You may either love or hate all or part of this film...but it definitely won't bore you, and it will keep you thinking. Write back and let us know your thoughts!