 How does the author feel about Sam Raimi's direction of the film?
The script, by Alan Ball, a playwright and former sitcom writer, carries an invigorating blast of counterculture righteousness, along with the kind of pithily vicious marital bickering that makes some viewers (especially male) say, "Yeah! More important, it has a vein of metaphysical yearning, which the director, Sam Mendes, mines brilliantly. A hotshot English theater director (his Cabaret revival is still on the boards in New York), Mendes gives the film a patina of New Age lyricism and layer upon layer of visual irony. Several months ago, Daniel Menaker in Slate in contemporary film in which the protagonist attempts to break through our cultural and technological anesthetization into "the real."
 It feels like the director gave up control of the movie.
 It is sharply edited and full of texture.  It feels like the director gave up control of the movie.  It is moronic or insane or both.  It is woozily drawn-out.