This is a play done as a movie. The whole story takes place in a motel room, via dialogue and antics.
It is an exposé of conscience. One friend (Ethan Hawke) challenges the other to be honest in terms of the way he thinks about and talks about a certain incident with a girl that happened a few years before. Hawke is relentless in not allowing the friend to evade and self-deceive. Then the girl (Uma Thurman) shows up! The dialogue continues with even more mutual examinaton.
It is painful but edifying. It is strange to see unbelievers (the personae make no religious connections) fuss so much over honesty and integrity. By the same token, no redemption is offered other than the self-cleaning that presumably occurs by the process. The movie is thus both a rebuke and a scare-crow to any Christian that has become presumptuous.
There is a gratuitous taking of our Savior’s name that almost ruins the movie, unless one thinks that this brings out the bankruptcy of salvationless, autonomous man to an even greater extent.
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