This film was so bad. Cliché ridden as all hell (excuse the cliché). As soon as Jude Law arrived on screen one takes an instant and intense dislike to him. The character is just loud, verbose and annoying. At one point soon after his first appearance, someone refers to him as the son Max never had -- at which point, it's HUH?! CLEARLY I MISSED WHERE THESE TWO WERE SO CLOSE. Later, Jude Law's character (I won't dignify him by calling him Thomas Wolfe) teaches Max (a silent Firth) the "right" drinks to drink (bourbon instead of vodka) and the "right" music to listen to (jazz, of course) and picks up whores, making him, ergo, a fascinating guy who REALLY knows how to live. As for the wife, well she pops pills and pulls guns and goes all psycho for no discernible reason at all. The life of a writer is depicted oh, so writerly, all tortured genius etc. where writers obsess constantly about writing (and nothing else). Surprising, as this was (I think) written by a writer. Pretentious nonsense and boring as all hell ('schuss the cliché).