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Clarence Tsui

Conversation(s) With Other Women

Starring: Helena Bonham Carter,  Aaron Eckhart

Director: Hans Canosa

The film:  For an example  of how technical wizardry can  undermine a film's impact, look no further than Conversation(s) With Other Women.  What   captures your attention  initially isn't the remarkable script, the intense acting or the taut time-frame (the film  plays out almost in real time) - it's the  split screen.  Sometimes,  it's effective,  offering  various ways a character might react to a  cutting remark.

It also allows  fragments of the past  to be  seen at the same time as what's happening in the present, showing how the mind plays tricks on the  protagonists and  on the audience.

Then again, Conversation(s) isn't 24. The strengths of the  dual-screen format - the presentation of parallel but intertwined plotlines,  especially in thrillers  - are hardly called for here.  Hans Canosa's  feature-length debut is basically a talky affair between two people cocooned  for an hour or so.

What drives the film is Gabrielle Zevin's  delightful screenplay. What appears to be a flirtatious meeting between two guests at  a wedding reception  becomes increasingly turbulent, their intimacy revealed as much more than  a chance encounter.  The differences in their  traits and  perspectives about life  are relayed vividly by their lines, which are  spiced with equal doses of confusion, cynicism and compassion.

At the heart of Conversation(s)  are the performances  of Helena Bonham Carter (right)  and Aaron Eckhart.   They gradually unpeel and reveal the layers of two characters who are much more than  they seem (she a slightly neurotic married woman,  acting as bridesmaid for a distant acquaintance; he a canny, charming, successful lawyer and  partner of a dashing young dancer). It's almost painful to watch the pair struggle  with the pains of love lost, regained and  lost again.

The extras: The bonus features prove Conversation(s)' solid credentials as an indie project, with the inclusion of a  demonstration of the dual-screen technique  that looks as if it was used in courting financiers. Then there's an explanation of the film that no doubt came in handy  for festival programmers, juries and video distributors.  Another segment has Canosa  talking about the computer-generated effects.   Easily the worst is an interview with Bonham Carter and Eckhart, which - unlike  the film and  other extras - is poorly conducted and shot.

The bonus: Never mind the gadgetry - it's conventional things  such as the acting and  screenplay that triumph in this very engaging and original piece.



Conversation(s) With Other Women