Well made film, well acted, beautiful, almost tactile, imagery. Seems to me that verisimilitude is the key to the Oscars these years, just as (preferably mental) illness was back in the late 80s and early 90s. Catherine Keener is almost as good as Philip Seymour Hoffman. The only thing that is annoying the shit out of me is the "this is a quality film" signifiers on the music and title side. The slow careful lettering in not-too-big print overlaid with sparse single touches of the piano is just too "intelligent, powerful and sensitive" to me. And really, the story and material could do without the intelligent and sensitive. It's better than this kind of obvious self importance. It would be such a pleasure with short, bold, careless titles.
It's such a widespread problem. And it's probably less of a problem in the theater than it is at home on DVD. They should redo titles for the DVD in the same way paperbacks aren't sold with the same selfimportance as the original hardbacks are.