If your idea of a fun evening is watching some burnout spiral downward into the depths of depression then have I got a movie for you.
Philip Seymour Hoffman plays a computer programmer who goes off the deep end after his wife kills herself. No reason is ever given for the suicide, but she does leave her husband a letter which he carries around for almost the entire movie without opening it. That's what the title stands for, her signoff.
There's nothing wrong with Hoffman's acting - he's playing his usual character, the rumpled guy. But there's no drama to the story. We're presented with a man who's understandable upset about his wife's death, but that's it, that's the entire movie. The only change in the main character's state is that he gets progressively weirder as time goes by. He's withdrawn, anti-social, compulsive, demanding. By the end of the movie, he's reached the state of a two-year-old. The final scene is of him running through traffic with nothing on except a pair of underwear, like a big baby in diapers.
And what's with the guy sniffing gasoline? I thought there was some connection between the gas and his wife's death, but unless I missed something, it's just a quirk of his. I've heard of poor kids in third world countries sniffing gas, but that's because they can't afford drugs. You'd think someone with Hoffman's socio-economic standing could abuse something besides sniffing gasoline fumes.
Kathy Bates shows up as his mother-in-law, and she's just as strange as he is. In fact, just about everyone in the movie is a bit odd. Social interactions are strained all around, which just accentuates the main character's withdrawal. All in all, it's a very hard film to watch.
Philip Seymour Hoffman plays a computer programmer who goes off the deep end after his wife kills herself. No reason is ever given for the suicide, but she does leave her husband a letter which he carries around for almost the entire movie without opening it. That's what the title stands for, her signoff.
There's nothing wrong with Hoffman's acting - he's playing his usual character, the rumpled guy. But there's no drama to the story. We're presented with a man who's understandable upset about his wife's death, but that's it, that's the entire movie. The only change in the main character's state is that he gets progressively weirder as time goes by. He's withdrawn, anti-social, compulsive, demanding. By the end of the movie, he's reached the state of a two-year-old. The final scene is of him running through traffic with nothing on except a pair of underwear, like a big baby in diapers.
And what's with the guy sniffing gasoline? I thought there was some connection between the gas and his wife's death, but unless I missed something, it's just a quirk of his. I've heard of poor kids in third world countries sniffing gas, but that's because they can't afford drugs. You'd think someone with Hoffman's socio-economic standing could abuse something besides sniffing gasoline fumes.
Kathy Bates shows up as his mother-in-law, and she's just as strange as he is. In fact, just about everyone in the movie is a bit odd. Social interactions are strained all around, which just accentuates the main character's withdrawal. All in all, it's a very hard film to watch.