Synopsis
The lives of a lawyer, an actuary, a housecleaner, a professor, and the people around them intersect as they ponder order and happiness in the face of life's cold unpredictability.
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Cast
- Matthew McConaugheyTroy
- John TurturroWalker
- Clea DuVallBeatrice
- Amy IrvingPatricia
- Alan ArkinGene
- David ConnollyOwen
- Joseph SiravoBureau Chief
- A.D. MilesCo-Worker
- Sig LibowitzAssistant Attorney
- James YaegashiLegal Assistant
Recommendations
- 90
The New York Times
Thrillingly smart, but not, like so many other pictures in this vein, merely an elaborate excuse for its own cleverness. As you puzzle over the intricacies of its shape, which reveal themselves only in retrospect, you may also find yourself surprised by the depth of its insights. - 90
Los Angeles Times
Demands the utmost concentration, for to look away from the screen for even a brief moment is to risk losing a plot line or a crucial bit of information, but its cumulative, transporting impact makes it worth the effort. Above all, it has an overwhelming sense of reality atypical of the American cinema. - 88
Boston Globe
Resonates with intelligence and a poignancy made more sorrowful by what happened to all of us, but especially to New Yorkers, on that terrible day. - 75
Miami Herald
Nothing fantastic or supernatural ever happens, but you can still feel cosmic forces at work behind the scenes, conspiring to repeatedly test the movie's characters, doling out reward and punishment in equal doses. - 75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Smart, serious and deftly composed, New York director Jill Sprecher's jigsaw anthology film, Thirteen Conversations About One Thing, is the kind of work you want to applaud just for its ambitions. - 75
Baltimore Sun
Avoids pretension by never trying to be more than it is -- an acknowledgment that things frequently are not as bad as they seem. That's a concept that deserves a little spreading. - 75
New York Daily News
The segments are introduced with little clichés or homilies, like "Ignorance Is Bliss," but the fierce intelligence of the script reminds us that sometimes a cliché is the only way to express the ineffable. - 70
TV Guide Magazine
It starts slowly, but this contemplative drama's cumulative effect is genuinely haunting.
