World Traveler

World Traveler did seem completely aimless for the first third. However, once I comprehended where Freundlich was going with this, I began to really enjoy where the film was taking me.

There are moments of sudden truth in the film; Freundlich, who also made "The Myth of Fingerprints" (1997), about an almost heroically depressed family at Thanksgiving, can create and write characters, even if he doesn't always know where to take them.

Iridescent as each of the actors is, the result is like a handful of beads without the connecting string.

Limps shallowly along.

A hopelessly stolid and distant evocation of Bob Rafelson's "Five Easy Pieces."

A huge disappointment -- the kind of motion picture that makes you actively angry at the filmmaker for subjecting you to it and stealing two hours of your life.

Anemic, pretentious.