Unfortunately Sorrentino's often playful assault on genre conventions is sabotaged by an ostentatious visual style that alludes to the work of such disparate directors as Antonioni and Scorsese but is little more than a bag of empty tricks.

A story told as much through mood, sentiment and image than through a writer's more conventional tool of dramaturgy.

Sorrentino wins all bets we'll buy his film's more existential, literary, romantic ambitions because of the sheer ecstasy--the great beauty--of his style. Style becomes substance--the cuts and angles create narrative, the screen's surface opens up depths.

Two superfluous sub-plots notwithstanding, this atmospheric character study is clearly the work of a very talented filmmaker.