Barney's Version

Barney's Version is a film that tries very hard to condense an entire lifespan of a man within 2 hours or so, and imagines that loosely-connected vignettes throughout time and space will do the trick. It fails miserably at creating an anchor for the narrative in doing so, and is poorer for it. In fact, I'd simply call it a narrative failure and move on, except that it has some actors doing their career's best work.

Paul Giamatti is lively and extremely nuanced as the titular Barney, to the extent that he balances the pacing and thematic issues with his performance. You may not have ....