A deep, and deepening, sense of the artist's singular powers... a sort of secular pilgrimage, on which you may feel your perceptual ability to register minute differences in tone and texture steadily refined, and your heart ambushed
by rushes of emotion.
Over another stretch
of about 10 minutes, we experience brutal rage (when Barry is overwhelmed during a date with Emily Watson's Lena, a woman seemingly out
of his league, he steps into the bathroom and kicks in the stall doors, grunting with volatile distress), we experience achingly sincere
emotion (when the date ends with Lena unexpectedly calling Barry back up to her apartment for a kiss, he sprints down the hall like a man on fire
rushing towards an extinguisher, underscored
by strings and accordions straight out
of an Audrey Hepburn romance), and we experience stark terror (after the date, Barry is accosted
by extortionists and flees on foot as they pursue with hurled invective).