This is not the worst film i have ever seen, but it is certainly the worst film that i have seen that had such a potentially great cast. This filmed play has ugly worthless people leading ugly wasteful lives, as the tedium grows ever more unbearable, the acting becomes ever more mechanical and laborious with stale lifeless direction.The story is one long Hollywood conceit,i hated all the characters so cared not one token for any of them, so the film just died in transit.I only got through the entire 2 hours of tedium by watching the DVD in 20 minute chunks.In A word a car crash bore.

It is very much like a stage play, (not surprising since that is where it came from). It is all in the dialogue rather than action; interaction between two or three characters only most of the time, sudden changes of mood and dynamics, more cerebral than visceral. It is more expansive than a stage play though, even though it has that feel about it. The screenplay includes nice cinematic touches like the car phone dialogues where one car over takes the other and he shouts at him as he goes past. A similar thing was done from the balcony of the flat earlier in the film. There are also some qualities of a Michael Mann about it with the use of architecture and music as film elements.The film grew on me as it went along. One of the things that made it difficult perhaps, was that none of the characters were very likable, but the acting by all of them was a tour de force. Nice to see Meg Ryan given a chance to do some real acting instead of being just pretty-pretty set decoration. It's a film that is hard to take in one sitting I think, and will bear repeated viewing with more coming out each time.This film is likely to appeal to people who liked such films as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Glengarry Glen Ross, Le Diner de Cons and others which have a stage play feel about them. Who said that theatre is dead?

I could go into a long exposition about this movie and why I disliked it...but I won't. The characters are truly horrible people, real as they may be. I found myself detesting them completely. I can't relate to this film in any way. The only thing I can conclude is that it must have been made by self centered Hollywood types FOR self centered Hollywood types. Palminteri's character is probably one of the worst screen characters I've ever seen. As I mentioned earlier, most of my stomach wrenching was in direct result of this guy. It's a bizarre film, and in the least, it'll leave you being thankful for your "normal" life.

I sat through this whole movie and truly thought it sucked. Not that it was badly done, exactly. Maybe because it was too well done. I moved out of LA because I got tired of the self-absorbed druggies who believed they truly appeared wise and cool as they spouted useless dribble, which, because of their drugged up state, sounded wise to their own ears. So, sitting through an entire movie where every moment was filled with that sort of character and every single character was that sort of character, was fairly painful.Sean Penn's did a great job of playing a simpering weakling who wanted to be like everyone else. He continually watched the moves of the other characters and really looked like he was watching them to decide what feelings he was going to express. His whole being said "Love me! I want you to love me! Is that okay?" In a sub-society where the biggest cars, the biggest houses, and the highest price tags are what make someone a success; where being like "us" rather than being like "them" is not only a good thing, but the only thing; and where the slightest misstep can make you tumble off of the tight-wire of popularity, people tend to lose themselves and just start becoming mirrors of their rivals, trying to maintain top-dog status. Look through any "People" magazine, how many stars do you see with their own style? Their own way of talking? Their own way of walking? The key is "Be like the other guy." And in real life, the pressure gets to much, sometimes, and you end up with people like the characters in Hurlyburly.So, nope, I didn't like the movie, but if art imitates life, then this movie is truly art because there are pockets of almost-humanity out there that are filled with this kind of life. Did the general population need to see it? No, probably not. But, hey! Star Trek, with it's thousands of alien nations was a popular series, so I can see where someone would think a movie about an earth-bound alien society would also bring in the audiences. Although, now that I think about it, there was a much shorter version made, years ago. It was a 30-second commercial where the dialog consisted of two lines: "This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs." I think they should have stopped while they were ahead.