One of those movies I really need to be in the mood for, and even then it’s not an easy or comfortable watch. What makes it worth viewing is the cast, and their excellent performances: Sigourney Weaver, Kevin Kline, Joan Allen as the adults; and early (-ish) performances from Elijah Wood, Tobey Maguire, Christina Ricci, and Katie Holmes’ first appearance!

The story meanders through several days of suburban life in the 1970s. The husband having an affair with his neighbour’s wife; the wife who suspects, and struggles to reclaim some kind of life and excitement; the key party…

Meanwhile the kids are struggling to define their own lives. Experiments with sex are unglamorous, painfully clumsy and premature. Comic-reading Tobey Maguire offers a little narration and surprising maturity to the piece whilst explaining how the Fantastic Four reflects real life.

The period feel is captured brilliantly, for all I’m not quite old enough to really remember it. It perhaps adds to the discomfort of it all that this is my parents’ era. But it certainly adds an innocence, a half-remembered less cynical time, without pretending the characters are anything less than human.

i loved it just as much, maybe more. ow.