Writer: Ezekiel Lee Zhiang Yang

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Watch this if you liked: “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”, “Strangers On A Train”

Andrew Jarecki's "All Good Things" was released in the U.S. with limited screenings and it's not hard to see why it doesn't command confidence - the movie is brilliantly acted and looks really gripping, while at the same time being completely unnecessary, leading to a Roger Ebert snub, who rubbished it with a "I don't understand David Marks after seeing this film and I don't know if Andrew Jarecki does."

Weinstein woes aside (plenty of problems in completing and releasing the film), "All Good Things" is truly a misnomer, considering that it intentionally overlooks the psyche of main character David Marks, whose story here is based on real estate scion Robert Durst and the case of his missing wife that was reopened after 20 long years upon discovery of some new evidence. It is an admittedly captivating narrative but lacks any sort of real reward as a thriller-mystery, probably due to the decision of not using more creative license to fill in the blanks. No surprise then that nobody backed it for big promos and a wider release.

Nursing the frustration would be the damned fine performances of a distant Ryan Gosling (2007's "Lars And The Real Girl" and "Fracture") and an appropriately nervous Kirsten Dunst ("The Virgin Suicides" 1999, "Spider-Man 3", 2007) as the lead pair, backed by a solid turn by the distinguished Frank Langella - you probably last saw him in another mind-boggling mystery, "The Box" (2009). Gosling's choice of disturbed roles continue, to good effect, while Dunst has a very watchable part here as the alienated wife, hopefully serving as a pre-cursor to a number of great roles in upcoming movies this year ("Melancholia", "On The Road") after having been absent from the big screen for two years or so.

Going back to the film, "All Good Things" was reported by the New York Times as being disliked by the source of it all - Robert Durst - who has rejected the portrayal of him in the movie. Worse, the Durst Organization had earlier threatened a lawsuit against the flick should it be released - but his younger brother Douglas, who now runs the company, thought that "so few people will watch this that any litigation would be superfluous".

Times Square in the 70s never looked more distant than in "All Good Things" but the actors will console. You can get the DVD come March 2011.

Cinema Online, 17 January 2011