[Writer-director Carlos] Reygadas is nothing if not ambitious-when he fails, he fails big.

You feel like you've walked into someone's couples therapy session. You're locked in there with them and you're desperately looking for a way out.

The experience must have been a cathartic one for Reygadas, but at 177 minutes, audience members who survive this marathon round of couples therapy deserve to charge an hourly rate.

What bothers me more than the film’s greatly-attenuated content is that, five features in, Reygadas appears to have settled on an aesthetic toolbox with a set number of shot possibilities.