The Actor

While Mr. Holland is a clear talent with a screen presence at once natural and vivid, his character is passive to the point of emptiness.

An undeniably haunting piece of work, a story that’s out of place and time in a world that’s like our own but not quite. Rod Serling would have dug it.

Scenes snap off, as if the thread of events between has evaporated, and this sense of being unmoored pervades Holland’s beautifully controlled performance.

Burdened by a hazy and mannered style that drains it of urgency and feeling, it’s a self-conscious curio that’s less dreamy than dreary.

Johnson has bent the novel inside out and turned it into, of all things, a romance.

If films are going to ask us to dream with them, there ought to be more that look and feel like what Johnson delicately achieves here.

There is plenty to be found here with Paul and his deep fear of losing his identity. And his desperation to find it, even when you only have the ability to see yourself through the eyes of other people.

This is an unusual, fascinating movie, taking the main character's iffy memory as a visual theme and creating an unreal atmosphere in which, despite moments of peace, things seem to be a bit off.

Surreal thriller that relates identity to memory.

Like [its lead character], the movie lacks a distinct sense of self. All the lighting cues in the world can’t make up for a story about a person granted no personhood by the camera.