It was pretty fantastic. Woody Allen impresses again with his theatrical style scripts and well-written characters. There were a few moments in the film that I found to be predictable, but I never felt cheated as an audience member because of it. It's not really a movie that relies on you to be guessing where the characters will end up, but more so being able to observe them along the way.

Each of the characters were unique and consistent, and because of the story it was trying to tell, it provided a really good excuse to see some emotional performances. Most notably by Cate Blanchett, who gives the best performance of the film and possibly one of the best all year. She provides many observable subtleties in her performance and I was never really watching the movie thinking of her as an actor. I was really able to believe that she was her character in this movie. And props to Woody Allen for that too, because his script gave a really in-depth and interesting character study to work with. The rest of the actors on film I still saw as the actors themselves, but they were casted for their roles well enough that it didn't seem unnatural in the slightest.

Louis C.K. is playing Louis C.K., Sally Hawkins is playing Sally Hawkins and Alec Baldwin is playing Alec Baldwin. The only real complaints I have about the film are some personal subjective issues I have with the editing. You can tell that the script's written in such a way that the characters should be interrupting each other ever so slightly. The beginning of the next sentence overlapping with the end of the previous one. And you can tell that too, because when two characters are in the same shot that's how it's performed. But there was one scene in particular where the two characters were in separate shots, and the editing provided an uncomfortable amount of room between their sentences, making it a little distracting for me. It seemed really unnatural, but thankfully it was only for a short scene. At a later scene in the film, it seemed like a cut was made in-between two quick sentences, with the first half of it cut out to make it seem like that's where the characters started talking.

Again, very minor, but it did take me out of the movie for a second. Despite those technical criticisms, this is so far one of the best movies I've seen all year. If you like watching a really interesting and entertaining character piece, then go check it out.

A stunning performance, to be sure, but unfortunately, plagued by the same demons that apparently Woody Allen himself embraces.