The local music industry in Memphis is honouring a seminal performer/producer Alan James (Torn) with a banquet. At the airport he finds that his son and daughter in law have "missed" their flight and goes on to the award dinner with his Russian girlfriend Laura (Korzun). She is left alone when he disappears off to a hotel room party after the dinner and eventually sex with a singer. Laura hits the bottle and is taken home by a stranger who is thrown out after he paws her.

Watching silently is Michael (Burrows), Alan's son from a former marriage, who later reproaches her. It becomes clear that the two have more in common than just age. They embark upon an affair, but neither really knows what to do with their lives and the emptiness continues.

If you have ever wondered what would happen if an someone made an English-speaking version of one of those French films where actors look moody all the time without doing much, then you should look no further than this contrived offering.

The first noteable event happens after forty two minutes when Laura starts to read some of Michael's writing, but we never get to know the content as she is interrupted. By the time the affair gets underway you couldn't care less as Sachs has already hammered home how empty everbody's life is as they orbit around the great craggy beast of Alan.

Michael refers to him as a "mean son of a bitch" and an "awful father" and one can see why as Rip Torn turns on the power as a boozing, womanising music man who delights in insulting the babysitter (Laura's son Sam is there, but whether he is Alan's is anybody's guess), and creating havoc at the studio.

Beside him everybody else is in forty shades of grey and each of the characters remain remote from each other.

The harsh colour of the cinematography is more reminiscent of television or documentary taxing your patience, and if it were not for Torn I would have followed at least one other reviewer who left half way through. Somehow this won the 2005 Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, which makes one wonder if arty film critics deliberately pick boring films because they think they have to, rather than because of their true worth.