The Merry Gentleman

The film’s title, needless to say, has an ironic bite. One of the pleasures of The Merry Gentleman is Mr. Keaton's commitment to that bite, which never registers as cruel or gratuitous, just honest, weary, sad.

A sly and surprisingly sublime little noir romance.

Without her (Kelly Macdonald), the generally well-acted The Merry Gentleman would descend into terminal lugubriousness.

It's a very small film, undermined by a puttering rhythm and Pinter-worthy pauses in the second half and a resolution neither satisfyingly oblique nor conventionally pleasing.

An overly muted and cautious piece of work. Watching it is like seeing a man ease out onto the limb of a tree, constantly testing its strength.

The potential for suspense is dropped (there's a subplot about the receptionist's flight from her violent husband, but he appears in only a couple of scenes) in favor of lots of hushed interludes in which nothing happens.

Ms. Macdonald works modest wonders within these constraints -- she's a lovely actress, and a skilled one -- but too much is asked of her; Kate's innocence finally wilts beneath the camera's fixed gaze.