Father of Invention

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

To make great drama, you need it to be ultimately believable: to do great comedy, you have to make it laugh-out-loud funny, enough that the unbelievable moments don't matter. Like many films, this opts for a half-in, half-out approach that neither approaches believability, nor humour. The 2-dimensional 'angry lesbian' character was kind of amazingly offensive, even to someone as opposed to political correctness as myself, but unfortunately not offensive in an amusing way. Heather Graham can do better. And Kevin Spacey doesn't have that over-the-top quality that really lends itself to comedy. He's too restrained, forceful, unendearing. You can tell it's trying to go for that quaint, half-comedy thing that The Darjeeling Limited had, but it falls flat. I think this is largely down to Spacey's shtick, which just isn't quaint. And neither is the script... Have to admit though.. the emotional kick at the end got to me - as unbelievable as it was, it got to me. That's the magic of cinema, I guess.