Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
Many loosely connected characters cross paths in this film, based on the stories of Raymond Carver. Waitress Doreen Piggot accidentally runs into a boy with her car. Soon after walking away, the child lapses into a coma. While at the hospital, the boy's grandfather tells his son, Howard, about his past affairs. Meanwhile, a baker starts harassing the family when they fail to pick up the boy's birthday cake.
Robert Altman's sprawling Los Angeles mosaic adapts Raymond Carver's short stories into an interwoven tapestry of ordinary American dysfunction. The ensemble storytelling is genuinely masterful — 22 principal characters whose lives brush and collide with quietly devastating effect. The acting across the board is exceptional, with standout work from Tim Robbins, Julianne Moore, Tom Waits, Lily Tomlin, and a deep bench of talent all operating at peak form. Novelty is high because the film's specific voice — Altman's Nashville-style mosaic transplanted into Carver's bleak Pacific coast naturalism — is utterly singular, a perfect marriage of form and source material. The ending, punctuated by an earthquake, feels slightly too neat as a unifying device despite its thematic aptness. Cinematography by Walt Lloyd is competent and naturalistic but doesn't reach the level of Altman's visual ambition seen elsewhere — functional rather than transcendent.