Jack liked this a lot and I absolutely loved it. Two damaged yet passionate prep school teachers spar intellectually as they bring their honors classes into a competition between their art forms. Clive Owen (covered in Duplicity) is the charming dipsomaniac Jack who reveres language and Juliette Binoche (last blogged in Certified Copy) the prickly art teacher Dina who feels the same about painting. Supporting strength comes from Bruce Davison (Oscar-nominated for Longtime Companion (1989), Davison usually plays supporting roles, too many to deconstruct) as fellow teacher Walt, Valerie Tian (I don't remember her small part in Juno (2007)) as student Emily, Adam DiMarco (new to me) as bad boy student Swint, Christian Scheider (24-year-old son of Roy, in his feature debut) as Jack's son Tony, Amy Brenneman (my favorites are Your Friends & Neighbors (1998), Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her (2000), Off the Map (2003), Nine Lives (2005), Mother and Child, 138 episodes of Judging Amy (1999-2005), and 111 episodes of Private Practice (2007-2013)) as bejeweled trustee Elspeth Croyden of the Croyden School where the movie is set, and Navid Negahban (Abu Nazir on Homeland--I did not recognize him!) as the principal. Trivia: the actress who plays Binoche's sister Sabine is Janet Kidder, niece of Margot.
Binoche is an accomplished painter in real life and all the artwork attributed to her character Dina is Binoche's own.
Director Fred Schepisi (I loved Roxanne (1987), A Cry in the Dark (1988), Six Degrees of Separation (1993), I.Q. (1994), and the TV movie Empire Falls (2005)) is no stranger to brainy romantic comedies, e.g. Roxanne and I.Q., and I distinctly remember liking the wordplay in Empire Falls. Nor is screenwriter Gerald Dipego (I liked Message in a Bottle (1999) a lot and saw Phenomenon (1996) again recently and enjoyed it just as much as the first time). My friends know I am wordy and this script, full of multisyllabic vocabulary words and Latin derivations, made me happy.
Schepisi's regular cinematographer Ian Baker does the honors with Vancouver, British Columbia, standing in for Maine. And every painter should have a studio such as Dina's.
Although I found this soundtrack album list, no CD nor download has been released.
Oh, the haters. Pay no attention to the haters (Rotten Tomatoes' critics' average is 38 and audiences 60) and enjoy the words and pictures in this movie.
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