John Cassavetes built this movie on a small conceit -- a love affair between two people who are wildly unsuited to each other -- and it doesn't take root.

The sculptural physicality of the images, a 3-D explosion without glasses, embodies that violence while preserving the antagonists' innocent grace; love smooths things out to a dreamy and reflective shine.

The fact is that although I admired specific things about the film, I never laughed very much and only felt slight, distant tremors of the joy that, I assume, rocked everyone connected with the movie during its production.

As close as the director ever came to shooting a straight love story – if anything in this cockeyed fairy tale can be described as straight, given all the punching and hollering and pounding on doors one comes to expect in Cassavetes country.