I stumbled across this little piece of fluff on IFC television last night. It had a cast worth checking, so in spite of IFC's unhopeful two star rating, I settled in to watch. What an odd little film.

The actor's performances were good -- very natural in terms of their interactions and relationships. The pace was a tad slow -- while I don't think movies need fist fights and explosions to create pace, a dialog-intensive film needs to beware of ......................... long..................................pauses. Still, that is a minor criticism in my view. If that was the only flaw in the film, I could and would have given it a higher rating because for the most part the actors handled those dialogic gaps pretty well.

The worse problem with this film was its failure in my view to address the fundamental "So what?" question. I was never given any reason to care a whit about any of these characters, with the limited exception of Beth (Bridget Fonda) whom I was hoping would get the hell out of Enfield. After she left, I rooted for her not be found by the pseudo-intellectual painter, Sid. Beth had made a couple of very bad choices, with the amoral Nick (Tim Roth) and the vacuous pop-psychologist, Sid, so I was rooting for her to stick to her guns, enjoy the moments of pleasure she had with Sid, and get away before her brain turned entirely to mush. Either Nick or Sid would have destroyed her: Nick with his amoral outlook and lack of direction; Sid with his pretensions of profundity that he used to shield his fundamental lack of imagination and ambition.

Still, I didn't care a helluva lot about Beth either. She made the right decision (finally), but her escape was not a complete triumph because for all we know she fell into yet another destructive relationship with some other needy weirdo two towns over.

All of these characters, in the end, were drifting along in pointless situations. With a film so lacking in plot, brevity was important and, thankfully, present. If this movie had pushed toward the two-hour mark, it would have been an utter waste of time unless the time had been used to give the viewer a reason to care about this crew of self-indulgent dim-wits.

If you have an attention span of sit-com-length, this is not your movie. True, it's 90 minutes or so, but those moments are stretched- as they should be. Sid's character (the sage, of sorts) wants to stretch a moment, and that is what this movie seeks to do. For the most part, these characters are ordinary people- and the actors play them as such. The dialogue isn't expository, but it's real- the characters interact as any person would. There are no huge turning points, explosions, love-struck stares, and all the rest of the hollywood spin supposed to be "real." These are people who could live down the street.

The best part, though, was the cinematography- the camera work is beautiful. There are just enough jump cuts to get your attention, but for the most part, the camera frames these ordinary lives without intruding on them, all while capturing the oranges, reds, and warm whites of the Arizona landscape.

While the character of the painter is supposed to be a sage- offering wise comments about identity and humanity, I was relieved when his mistakes/flaws were finally revealed at the end. All-in-all, the symbols and stress points made for a thoughtful movie.