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Roger Michell’s film opens with a hot-air balloon accident. Along with a handful of others, Joe (Daniel Craig) tries to hold down the balloon to help a young boy out. The balloon pulls away from them, and all but one man drops to safety; he holds on too long and falls to his death. Joe becomes obsessed with the idea that if he had held on too, the death could have been prevented. The tragedy causes a rift between him and his girlfriend, Claire (Samantha Morton), who witnessed the accident. Also present at the scene was Jed, who’s played by Rhys Ifans with the kind of beatific grace that hints at the madness under the surface. Jed falls in love with Joe, and the film devolves into a stalker tale. What’s more interesting, though, is how Joe’s increasingly shattered emotions affect his life with Claire. Adapting the Ian McEwan novel, Michell seems more interested in this too, so when the stalker story arrives, it feels tacked on. Ifans plays his desperate loneliness well, but by the time he takes over the action, he’s just getting in the way of the good stuff. (100 minutes)
BY BROOKE HOLGERSON
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