A more appropriate title couldn’t have been given Michael Petroni’s romantic drama–except, maybe, “Till Any Noise Wakes Us.” The formidable acting talents of Guy Pearce and Helena Bonham Carter are squandered in this sluggish story of a psychiatrist (Pearce) who returns to his childhood home to bury his dead father, only to face up to memories that also need to be laid to rest: namely, those of his first, lost love. Perhaps not so coincidentally, on the way to town he meets a mysterious young woman (Bonham Carter) whose murky past may very well be tied to his own.
The woman’s true identity won’t be a surprise to anyone who watches the film; it’s probably glaringly obvious to anyone reading this review. But Petroni takes his sweet time making the key revelations, in vain hopes that his cuts back and forth through time and Pearce and Bonham Carter’s charisma and chemistry would maintain interest. But the nonlinear structure and glacial pace is less dream like and more like a droning trance, and accordingly Pearce and Bonham Carter sleepwalk through their roles. They don’t seem terribly interested in the material, let alone each other, so the love story that is supposed to drive the film fails to ignite a single spark–and, hence, the film fails to generate a single iota of interest from the viewer.
