Protraph Lack of good storyline.

ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Taraparain Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Numerootno A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

edwagreen Excellent film with Natalie Portman as the second wife of an attorney enduring a rocky relationship with her husband's son from his first wife, and a first wife, a doctor, who is nasty to the hilt.Charlie Tohan, as the young son, delivers a powerful performance as the precocious son William.There is tension in the air with a great reason. Seems that Portman and her husband lost a 3 day old baby girl and the boy keeps bringing it up.The film is an excellent one as it well describes the family relationships. Lisa Kudrow, as the first wife, is also very good here. She will go to bat for Emilia when the latter thought that she had accidentally smothered the baby.The film is handled in a mature way with upper class people finding their way through difficult emotional times.

rapbuddha This is a really bad movie starring decent actors and nice shots of new york but with a laughable script and characters who although really obnoxious, i cant say that they are totally unrealistic-i am a lawyer in Piraeus, Greece and most people i know-Greek ''petit bourgeois''- are cynical, boring and fake just like the film characters- i often wonder if people in second rate cheesy Hollywood films like this one act the way people in real life behave or if it is the other way around, if people in small and globally unimportant countries like the one i have the misfortune to live in, currently struck by a sudden wave of huge unemployment,try to act like actors in US films so they can cope with business and social life situations and achieve the American-global dream egg finishing studies only as a means to getting married to a 50 year old fart -who exploits all the other young lawyers that didn't get laid with him, by underpaying them to do all his work- with a big house, a big car, lots of money, problems solved. However, the dialogs are more ridiculous than plan 9 from outer space, Natalie port man is way overrated both as a serious actress and a sex symbol, her aging face not being cute anymore and her average skinny short body very mildly desirable. Btw, she tends to act in a neurotic way in almost every film she stars in, even in comedies, shes hyperactive and screams a lot. I wonder if shes on coke or a crazy person in real life as well. She always impersonates lawyers, doctors, professors etc, women with a ''strong personality'', that is aggressive ball breakers with money and/or prestigious jobs to back their psycho and rude behavior towards mankind. I imagine that this could easily be the true personality of a Hollywood diva who also has a prestigious university degree. Despite what another commenter has written, the movie Doesn't show the viewer where it leads to until the end when you finally realize it was about the stepmother-stepson relationship. Somewhere in the middle of the movie, when Natalie was screaming(the way she did in the rest of the movie as well, for the most part), my stomach ached and i had a fleeting thought that i watched the black swan 2, a thriller in which the former ballet dancer would take her revenge on men by marrying them and then cutting their penis and murdering their only child, something like De pal mas Carrie but with female lawyers and not high school students in it. The only plus of the movie is the child actor. Don't know him, hadn't seen him before, but he was the only decent actor in this mess of a movie, supporting the ridiculous lines he had to speak out the way a top notch experienced actor would. Then, after laughing through the entire movie, comes the monologue of the child actor about death in Buddhism and the possibility of meeting someone dear to you that died again in the form of another person and the close up to his facial expressions and with it a great surprise, i actually cried. Its an extremely powerful scene and GREAT acting by the kid, even the interaction with Portman really works out in this scene. Its the only scene the kid STARS and not co-stars in and its the only scene that is worthwhile and then some.It was a shock to me that a movie i totally rejected from the start touched me so heavily for a few minutes-i don't cry that easily, for real! :p If not for the last 5 minutes, i would call this movie a chaotic disaster and rate it MINUS one(monstrously extremely awful). Watch out for the kid. Given a little luck, he might turn out a very gifted and successful actor within the next ten years!

MLDinTN is basically what this movie is about. And the film goes out of its way to make the two female character, played by Portman and Kudrow, seem very dislikable. Kudrow is the ex-wife and is just plain ugly at times with what she says and is a control freak. You don't feel sorry for her that her husband left her for a younger woman. Who would want to listen to her carry on at home. Portman, is the younger woman, Emilia, whom steels her boss, Jack, from Kudrow. She gets pregnant, so he decides to divorce and marry her. Their baby dies 3 days after being born. Then there is the stepson, William, whom seems to set Emilia off. She seems very annoyed by him and always does or say the wrong thing. Emilia also has problems with her father and brings that into her marriage. The way everyone is portrayed in the movie makes you wonder how they ever got married in the first place.FINAL VERDICT: No one is likable in this. Not worth a viewing.

Sherazade Natalie Portman plays a young attorney who has an affair with a married co-worker who then divorces his wife (played by Lisa Kudrow) in order to marry her when she becomes pregnant. The union is put to test when Emilia's (Portman) baby Isabel dies three days after birth. The death of the baby, hostility from the ex-wife, the family maid and more threaten to dismantle the marriage but the budding relationship between stepson and stepmother proves an unlikely source of saving grace and hope. Strong performances by Portman (who roles like this should be second nature to by now) and Kudrow. I have to admit it though, it's hard to feel sorry for Emilia as she did plan out her strategy to take another woman's man yet has the guts to sit in judgment of her own father who cheated on her mother.