Maybe Lord and Miller knew what they were doing when they went for such a bright and breezy tone. They've crafted a sci-fi epic which is more than two-and-a-half hours long, and which is a one-man show for much of that time. They have filled it not with action, but with mind-stretching concepts, painstaking laboratory research and knotty technical puzzles. To do all that and keep things zippily entertaining throughout is an extraordinary achievement.
At times it's as if the film itself was stitched together from the parts of other movies, but collecting all those bits and pieces is a sign of Gyllenhaal's huge scope and ambition.
It's undoubtedly true that with its highly privileged social milieu and chic interiors, At the Sea could be caricatured as another "rich people have problems too" drama. But the depth of feeling in Adams' characterisation of Laura taps into something much more universal.
Starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, Emerald Fennell's new take on the classic romance is far from faithful to the original book – but it is "utterly absorbing" in its own right.
It's true that many viewers have already fallen under its spell, but Zhao and O'Farrell have stripped away so much of what makes the novel magical – the time-travelling structure, the hypnotic prose rhythms, the internal monologues and the tiny, tangible details – that what's left is no more profound or authentic than any other costume drama set in ye olde days.
American society, in all its strengths and missteps, has been a major theme for both Pynchon and Anderson, and it grounds Anderson's dazzler of a film, giving it an emphatic, unmistakable political charge.
