Ryan Penter

Stylish story within a story about a ex-husband's own fears manifested in his novel, Neverending Storyesquely depicted through his ex-wife's reading (sans luckdragon). Gyllenhall's grief/anger/guilt-riddled ex-husband simmers throughout and is superbly effective, whilst Shannon and Taylor-Johnson's performances are wildly brilliant.

It's a simple film in terms of the points it's trying to convey; society's obsession with relationships and couples, the alienation of "single-dom", the searching for meaningful connections or inventing them if they're not there. But it's just not a well executed story tell. Lanthimos has to take these points and do something with them, explore them, break them down. I didn't feel much for any of the characters either, which suggests a failure on the director's part. Visually the film is bland, and the story loses pace.