The Dying Gaul

First off, the less you know about this movie before seeing it, the better. Go in clean. And just let it such you in. Here are a few things you CAN know. (a) The screenwriter/director, Craig Lucas, is gay but wrote his best known play, PRELUDE TO A KISS, about a straight relationship that has overtones of homosexuality. (b) Patricia Clarkson may be the finest actress of her age. She flits around the first 20 minutes of this movie in a bra and panties, toyingly svelt but with a panther-like quality you only realize later. (c) This is a movie without a protagonist or an antagonist -- or more accurate, a movie in which each of the main characters take turns at being the antagonist and protagonist. (d) Despite the gay aspects, this is really a movie about betrayal, and it is fiendishly mean (but in a good way). (e) Peter Sarsgaard has never looked handsomer. (f) That's all you need to know. See it.