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There's a lot to like in this offbeat, deadpan comedy that's part Rohmer and part Wes Anderson. Beautifully shot, and wonderful, notable performances by many of the actors, especially Emma Diaz. The character of Ray is at the center of the film, though, and the portrayal is too thin to carry it along. Clearly he's meant to be something of a cypher. But there's too little going on with the portrayal to merit the attention.

This is a gripping, tough movie about the bond between two sisters, focused on the the younger of the two, a hard working business consultant, and how the reality around her erodes as her older sister is treated for mental illness. Valerie Pachner's performance is restrained and subtle. The cinematography is superb, bringing your the cold surfaces of chrome-blue hallways and white institutional walls that contrast with the turmoil that grows within the main character's increasingly tortured psyche. A beautiful, rich film.

There's something quite remarkable at the heart of this honest and direct portrayal of a very human crisis. The leads here - Frederic March and Florence Eldridge, real-life husband and wife - are completely and thoroughly a middle-aged couple and depicted as such, in all their wrinkles and folds and reflections on lives that have been lived. It's a reminder that the two kinds of people we see in movies are the very young and beautiful and the very old. The Cookes here are seemingly fully filled in, a husband and wife with grown children, in the midst of real lives, inhabiting their marriage with the deep love that is far beyond the romantic love that's the staple of motion pictures. This isn't the dashing Frederic March of the 1930s but a mature, restrained father and husband. It's a bit melodramatic at times - director Michael Gordon is a journeyman professional and not William Wyler, director of the great film of that era starring March, The Best Years of Our LIves. But watch for the details, such as the sharp, discordant strings stabbing along as windshield wipers swipe across the screen. I think I saw that in another movie made a few years later.