Excellent piece of film-making This is one of the best films of 2006. Kate Winslet is superb, as usual, as a bored housewife/mother who has an affair with the husband of Jennifer Connelly's character, with consequences evolving in several directions. It's Winslet's show, with Connelly playing mostly an incidental role as the "knockout" wife of the man cavorting with Winslet. There's a very funny insert with Connelly's character preening for the camera like a fashion model, very unlike the documentary filmmaker she is, poking fun at extraordinary beauty, and how it's insufficient to keep a husband from straying. There's also a deadpan narrator who's often hilarious in his understated background of the action. He's a familiar voice. I later found that he's the voice of Nova on PBS. Finally, kudos to Jackie Earle Haley, probably best known as the motorcycle riding/smoker/kid baseball player in The Bad News Bears, from 30 years ago. He plays an en-con trying to re-enter society in a white bread neighborhood. His is a powerful, poignant performance. Across the board, the acting is excellent, as is the script, adapted from a novel by the director, Todd Field (In the Bedroom).