Where'd You Go, Bernadette?

It succeeds despite itself. How? Largely based on the tremendous skill of the principal actors, who turn in terrific performances and make you care ultimately about people who are, frankly, not particularly likable on the face of it. This film is clearly meant to be a showcase for Cate Blanchett, and she's good, but without sterling work from Billy Crudup (a vastly underrated actor) and young Emma Nelson--who really binds the whole work together with her marvelous, heartfelt, spot-on performance--you would just have a star turn for an actress presenting a profoundly antiheroical lead character. The ensemble work overcomes the relative mundanity of the slightly-elevated suburban-angst plotline. Thanks to those efforts, when the payoff comes the viewer feels that all that came before it, including the audience's own dubious feelings about the matter, was worth the effort. Good enough.