The Seagull

As entertaining and as lovingly crafted as it is, it fails to transcend.

Mayer brings a labored hand to the proceedings and can't maximize his dynamite cast or the potential for salaciousness in Chekov's tangled web of characters.

Chekhov would be appalled.

At times you feel like you're watching bits and pieces of two or three different films. Happily, they're all pretty good ones.

A story full of passion and longing and rage and betrayal that comes across as abstract verging on bloodless.

Great, thoughtful acting can take you only so far, and "The Seagull" has been brought into close-up without ever coming into focus.

This isn't a movie. It's tonal warfare.

It feels like at times it's attempting to condense the drama...this leads more to the soap-ish end of the spectrum. There's an elliptical quality to the storytelling that I'm not quite sure works this time around.

Annette Bening in full flow is always worth one's attention, and a distinguished supporting cast for the most part matches her a large part of the way.

We are left with the sense of a story that has been co-opted into the same accessible, middlebrow terrain that Chekhov was originally reacting against.

While certain themes are glossed over, the performances and DP Matthew J. Lloyd's lush cinematography offer some compensation.

Annette Bening is wonderfully haughty as Irina, the celebrated actor, visiting the family estate.