The Five Senses

Traveling from the tragic to the comic, this multifaceted film is richly acted and imaginatively directed.

The story didn't fully answer all my queries about the characters, but did such a nice job of keeping me interested that I wound up appreciating the mysteries that remained.

Narratively club-footed but directorially assured.

Most of the film is so purposefully bound by its construct that it feels more like a creative-writing project (sure, give it an A) than a movie (B-).

Particularly anticlimactic - the film itself seems sprung from molting yuppie catalogs.

Fake-sounding dialogue, some over-deliberate performances and five amazingly trite linked stories.

Beautifully shot and littered with disquieting character business, the film is hog-tied by its own bad Big Idea.