Third Person

It's been 10 years since writer-director Paul Haggis won some Oscars for Crash, a good but overrated movie. That film had a bunch of storylines weaving together, and gave some good actors decent showcases. It also seemed to set the stage for a promising directorial career. Haggis has yet to capitalize on his Oscar triumph. His latest probably won't do much to change that. It's a respectable but divisive effort that will confound a lot of viewers the way Cameron Crowe's complex and unjustly maligned Vanilla Sky did. It tries to do a lot, and it doesn't succeed on all fronts. Some will see it as a train wreck, whereas I see it as a flawed but reputable effort. It's a puzzle movie with Michael (Liam Neeson), a struggling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, as its centerpiece. His tempestuous lover Anna (Olivia Wilde) comes to visit him in Paris. The two have a strange, sadomasochistic relationship that will be explained. The reasons are a bit preposterous, but they make sense in context. There are two other story arcs featuring Adrien Brody, Mila Kunis and James Franco. The stories tie together with one of those big movie twists that will either make or break the picture for you. I liked the twist, but I wouldn't argue with you if you hated it.