I just watched the movie Closer, and give it a thumbs-up.

At first the dialogue seemed wooden, but it picked up pretty quickly. The succession of scenes, with big gaps in time, leaves you to figure out a lot of what takes place, but it was pitched just right: I never felt completely lost.

(Spoiler alert! Don't read on if you haven't seen the film.)

I was losing patience with the characters, with the huge back and forth changes of feeling: How could X think that Y is his/her soulmate?? I kept asking, then getting used to the idea, and then it would change again, exhausting me. But really, people sometimes do this: rationalize a story, then (when things go wrong) repudiate it and rationalize the new world, then repudiate that one and re-rationalize another world like the first one. The film nailed that.

But as I was saying, I was losing patience with the characters, but I was quite pleased how Alice "wins" at the end, how she plays them all. The film could easily have ended with two grim life compromises, but it settles for one, and Alice escapes for a new beginning. Hurrah!