It's All About Love

Joaquin Phoenix, Claire Danes, and a startlingly coiffured Sean Penn topline this visually striking hybrid of science fiction and art-house drama from Dogme 95 co-creator Thomas Vinterberg (The Celebration). Phoenix and Danes are a recently separated Polish couple in the year 2021 who find their marital troubles overshadowed by a spate of strange and ominous phenomena plaguing the Earth–-people mysteriously drop dead in their tracks, cold snaps threaten a new Ice Age, and in Uganda, citizens must anchor themselves to the ground or risk sailing off into space. Add to this confluence of oddities a subplot involving clones of Danes, a murder plot hatched by her brother, and Penn as Phoenix's eccentric sibling who periodically weighs in from a plane, and you've got an occasionally impenetrable (and not particularly romantic) picture that may baffle fans of the stars' Hollywood efforts. However, the cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle is beautiful, and those inclined towards more eclectic movie consumption might find some chilly treats to chew on here. --Paul Gaita