Barney's Blockbuster

Every once in awhile you might come across a film that you can't immediately categorize as a romance, a drama, horror or other genres or subgenres. This is bad in an imperfect world, where filmmakers sometimes try to do too much with one storyline, but thankfully director Richard J. Lewis' “Barney's Version,” starring the brilliant Paul Giamatti, has a strong enough story with the simplest touch.  
 
By a simple touch, I mean that while “Barney's Version” follows Barney Panofsky through his three marriages, accompanied by his arty and faithful friends, a healthy dose of the continent as well as his unabashed father, a former Jewish ex-cop played by Dustin Hoffman, the story never gets lost. The camera doesn't follow Barney's life because it's beautiful or even because it's flat-out hilarious (although it is). The 2010 Oscar-nominated “Barney's Version” follows a man who gets lost in himself because he can't appreciate a good thing when it's his.  
 
Perhaps we've seen Giamatti portray a charming asshole before, but there's no denying that he brings a certain thoughtful depth to his characters, especially here in “Barney's Version.” Rosamund Pike (Barney's thirds-a-charm wife) brings out what a truly mismatched pair of married people would be in real life, and accompanies Giamatti's antics gracefully with her character's poise and apparent steadiness. When you see them finally fall in love and have a family, you already see what's coming, but that doesn't make this story predictable and boring.  
 
Quite the contrary. In fact, my heart filled up at a film that could make me laugh but that also carries the potential to make me cry. And that's a simple touch that's hard to pinpoint.