I saw the Jed figure as existing in Joe's imagination, welling up from his unconscious mind to haunt him. Yes, Jed was at the triggering event but he haunts Joe without reference to anyone else, and challenges him on the most difficult subject for many English intellectuals: love for thy neighbour. Joe dismisses love publicly in his lectures and privately to friends: according to him it's just "biology". Naturally, this conviction makes him unaware of insulting his live-in lover. He is trapped inside his inability to love. Jed's professed love makes Joe extremely uncomfortable, and he uses all sorts of evasions to escape it. This passage of the film, roughly the first half, was rivetingly significant to me. It is dealing with a central English issue. As the plot developed and Jed emerged from the shadows into Joe's life I thought the film lost its way a little. Joe never confronted his inability to love, and Claire left him. The symbolic representation of this disaster was brilliantly theatrical, but raised some difficult issues of plot resolution that were uncertainly handled. To call this picture a stalker film is like saying Hamlet is about mental health: the more you see the stalker and the less a haunting, the less the film will entertain and challenge you.

(since antirealist already beat me to the first...)

Oddly, I happen to be the person who asked Michell why he chose to use a hand-held camera on Saturday, and his initial response ("Why not?") was a bit flippant, but at the same time, I'm guessing the filmmakers weren't intending to give anything other than glib answers to the puffball questions they were expecting. (When asked if they felt the film perpetuated the negative stereotype of the mentally ill being violent, director Michell dismissed the allegation out of hand before Rhys Ifans stepped in with a quick-hit one-liner about being "completely sane, but I'm feeling a bit violent about that question." That should do it for intelligent discourse at THIS Q&A, thank you...)

The camera-work is a bit distracting, not necessarily because it's hand-held but because the reason for it -- which Michell did say was to represent a first person POV -- is so obvious. In particular, there are a few scenes in which the camera sneaks around behind walls and windows to catch a better view of the characters that screams "you're being watched," which generally sums up my main concern about the film: it telegraphs almost everything.

For a psychological thriller, it isn't nearly as taut or unpredictable as it needs to be. It also lags notably between plot points, content to bleed off any steam it may have picked up from a previous scene. Part of this problem could be caused by the trailer's reliance on exposing nearly every twist in the film, and part of it could be on the film's overuse of "thriller music" that, in the cut I saw, nearly overpowered all five senses every time it appeared in the mix.

However, the acting is generally impressive, yet understated. Daniel Craig does a wonderful job at portraying the complexities of a rational man who comes unhinged in the aftermath of a bizarre accident and the resultant stalker he's burdened with. And there was at least one twist that made me jump, so all is not lost on the tension front.

Last thought: I was stunned by the film's equation of homosexuality, theology and mental illness. I'm not sure what exact conclusion it (or the book) is trying to come to, but I'm guessing the post-screening Q&A wasn't the place to bring it up...

A couple are about to open their Champagne and have a picnic in the beautiful Oxfordshire countryside when an out of control hot air balloon descends into their field, and, in so doing it perhaps disrupts or radically alters their lives forever.

After an extremely well shot and directed opening the film then never managed to live up to the expectations created by such a prolific beginning. The story became the study of the insane adoration of one man for another, as well as philosophical questions with regards to the nature of love and how we can understand this huge but largely overlooked phenomenon.

The acting by Daniel Craig was again impeccable, he really portrayed his part well of the University lecturer who becomes obsessed with being obsessed by, and is surely headed for the big time if he wants it. Samantha Morton was brilliant as Craig's artist girlfriend, but less convincing was Rhys Ifans who I can never really take seriously which was a problem with the character he played here.

The film techniques were impressive, the music was a little dramatic but good, and the editing was very well done. I did not mind the detached and at times hand held camera-work, it gave it a realistic and authentic quality. This was a strange but refreshing film that had great acting, an OK story and more or less maintained my attention throughout.