This is the story of two NYC homeless people. Tahir (Anthony Mackie) is from an African Nation that politically correct word checks don't allow. He has overstayed his VISA, but they won't ship him back. He is living on the streets playing plastic buckets as drums for donations. He espies Hanna (Jennifer Connelly) another homeless person with a heroin addiction. They do well apart, and their troubles begin when these two people worlds apart come together and try to live as a couple with semi-deep theological discussions.The film shows a little bit about the shelter system, but not enough to be an exposé, just a sad drama. The film is well done and acted, although it does jump a couple of times. For those that like sad slow moving realistic dramas to make their life feel better, this is the one.Guide: F-bomb, implied sex, brief nudity.

For one time, there is an American movie dealing with hobos, Muslim faith so about the invisible, the forgotten ones, the unloved so i can't blame it for that. However having the courage and heart to speak about those issues and fellows should not excuse the big nonsense and the lack to talent! Sadly this movie is filled with that ! As a typical American production, the first scene is about reading for a big, lost minute the logos of all producers in black and white ! Then, when the movies really begins, it's a repeat but this time with the names repeated in the frames ! For sure, nobody will tell that it's useless, irritating, that we don't give a s..t about them and that's maybe inappropriate with the content of the movie ! Next, as a typical American production, the cinematography is just awful : again this dreadful orange / blue filtering that makes people highly tanned in daylight and smurfs by night ! Once again, nobody to tell that movies looked better years ago, that the real world is also green, red, white. Jenny has a long career and should realize that her early movies had a more vivid, colored look than this actual poor two colors ! Next, I expected the story to tell the painful, atrocious lives of hobos but instead the movie manages to tell us about the life of privileged ones ! Having Jenny and her boyfriend crash a luxurious penthouse and benefit with this cool place is just dumb ! When they are in the streets, the story is pitiful : drugs, asthma, snow storm, sexual advances, accidents… well, it's too much, not very real, adding useless drama to already dramatic lives… The directing is stupid : we can see syringes but not inter-courses ! So it's like some events are too hard to show while it's the point of making such movies ! In addition, instead of giving it without make-up, fresh, clear and true in documentary style, the choice is to embellish with useless and stupid pathos : long scenes without dialogues, characters thinking or sinking and little tearful music ! For sure, the ending credits with the dedication caption to the homeless couple in front of his building is stupid because you really wonder what he did with them to have such a poor inspiration ! And he took us for idiots as his (my) building is surely Jenny's (our) building as well!So what's left is a courageous Jenny who is faithful to her challenging choices and who stunned me with her cute, perfect fluency in french, some good dialogues about faith but at the end, you would prefer Needle Park with Pacino for a better, documented, gripping tale of urban desolation !

I found this on Netflix streaming. At the end is a very short dedication to a homeless couple who lived outside the Bettany and Connelly home.Set in New York, Anthony Mackie is Tahir, homeless and plays makeshift drums on the street to earn spending money, mostly for food. He is an undocumented immigrant from Nigeria and seems very nice and kind.Also homeless in the New York streets is Jennifer Connelly as Hannah, who also appears to be a drug addict. (She is very thin in this movie, making me wonder if she lost weight for the role.) Their lives intersect.One several days we see him sort of following her around, not sure why. When she confronts him he says it is because she has his jacket tied around her waist, and he wanted it back. He had just spent a short time locked up and much of his stuff was stolen while he was gone from his nighttime alley.So the two become friends of sorts, then later start to refer to each other as boyfriend-girlfriend. They seem to make a genuine connection.The movie is well-written and well-acted but is never a fun or entertaining movie. The topic is too bleak, homeless in New York during a winter. However I am glad I took the time to watch it.SPOILERS: Hannah's husband was killed and she left home, abandoning her young son, I believe in Dallas (the dialog was unclear), and he dad makes occasional trips to New York to try to find her. As the movie is ending we see her on a bus, presumably finally kicking her habit and going home to her son. Tahir, it turns out, had joined Boko Haram and finally realized that was wrong and sought to clean up his life in New York. He gets sick and dies, perhaps of pneumonia. Hannah wraps his body and straps it to a makeshift raft, sending it out into the Hudson.

This is Paul Bettany's debut as a director and a writer and what a debut. This movie captures one's attention from the very beginning. The movie has many twists and turns while telling a story about an ignored group of people in today's society. It plays on the emotions of the audience from high to low. Jennifer Connelly and Anthony Mackie display good screen chemistry and play off each other really well throughout the movie. Jennifer Connelly was really believable and this is perhaps her best role to date. Anthony Mackie is equally mesmerizing in his performance. This is a well written and directed movie with wonderful acting. I would recommend this as a must see.