\”I really did quite like the concept behind this film. A sort of house-bound version of the "Truman Show" where a residence provides the continuity for the lives and loves of it's occupants over multiple generations. Our perspective comes from only one side of the room, looking out of the window at a grand Colonial mansion that once belonged to a Jefferson somewhere along the line. Right from the construction of this residence, we follow the lives of three distinct families, and the timelines are intertwined to avoid it just becoming a chronology of the place. It's also all interspersed by some native American imagery to remind us that this whole process of being born, breeding and dying is nothing new. The latter part of this film pulls the threads together of the mainstay of the storyline. The family of "Al" (Paul Bettany) and "Rose" (Kelly Reilly) who bring up their family and end up sharing in adulthood with their son "Richard" (Tom Hanks) and his wife "Margaret" (Robin Wright). It's this partnership that proves to the more turbulent as they find themselves trapped by his dead-end job, their dependancy on his parents for a roof over their head and as age overcomes all of these characters, the growing realisation that perhaps life is just passing - or has passed - them by. Robert Zemeckis has tried to construct something different here, and I did like that he didn't just trot a diary according to... The use of visually defined boxes to indicate to us that we are about to change timeline or storyline also, once you get used to it, works quite effectively, as does the use of the soundtrack to use music as a sign of changing attitudes. Sadly, though, the acting isn't really the sum of it's parts and the temptation to sink into the melodramatic seems to prove too much for all concerned. It is funny at times and the observational nature of the presentation can be poignant, too, but the flighty nature of the narrative is almost theatrical in style and doesn't allow us to really get our teeth into any of the characterisations. Wright increasingly underwhelms as an actor these days and here her pairing with te unremarkable Hanks comes across as all a bit shallow as we head a denouement that's rather clumsily telegraphed to us in the final fifteen minutes. It is an intriguing version of lives through a lense, and is certainly worth a watch. It's just a bit one-dimensional.”

CinemaSerf