"We Don't Live Here Anymore" is quite the trip. I wanted a truly thought provoking study of human relationships, and in the end, it's just what I received. This is really more than just an exercise of acting skills which challenge the actors to actually perform while constricted to limited scenery, but it becomes a truly insightful breakdown of marriage and de-construction of relationships and humanity while pinpointing the definition of the moral implications of infidelity and how these people approach it as a normal chore and as pure normality day after day.

Meanwhile, these four people, rather than facing that their marriages and human relationships are otherwise benign, hide in fake relationships that live on desire, lust, and just phony routine, yet are just afraid to approach these routines with real relationships afraid of hitting the same dead end they're in with their current relationships, yet, somehow, can't let go of the relationships they're currently in for fear of the same implications and what it will do to their children. They're in ruts, with no way out. They each live the miserable mundane lives you'd expect that go nowhere no matter how hard they try, and base their days on routine they have little need for, but insist on doing to keep stability in hopes that it will change. They want to mix things up so they--mix things up, and do so by taking advantage of the other's weaknesses and idiosyncrasies in the process.

They then find they enjoy it, but don't exactly see it as a destruction of their relationships with their partners, they see it more as just another routine they have to go about. They're stuck in these ho-hum lives, and even by seeking to break free from monotony, they're still stuck in monotony, and they put on a show for the kids, though it becomes apparent the children, whom in the end seem more mature then them all, know what is happening outside their doors. But split or not, the children suffer throughout the tribulations of these individual's whom are often in such a stupor they forget to actually notice them, but by the end, we see it may just be too late. Each character in this film have incredibly despicable personalities as they approach these situations that are normally cruel with a sense of disdainfulness for both the situation, the potential consequences, and towards the feelings of their partners simply because they only seek self-satisfaction.

Director John Curran presents such an efficiently beautiful, yet utterly murky portrait of these four characters that it's very compelling. Mark Ruffalo, who I always love, gives a top-notch performance, along with Laura Dern who is rightfully unlikable. Jack, played by Ruffalo, is basically an absentee father who only begins acting like a father when his self-righteous contrition take hold from his affair with blonde beauty Edith (played by the utterly delicious, and sexy Naomi Watts), Dern who plays Terry feels an immense amount of spite to Jack for his attempt to make amends at such an inopportune time and they clash,

Watts is very good as the caring but smug Edith whose attachment to her children may very well mean unending misery for her, while her husband Hank (scene stealing Peter Krause) is also absentee spending most of his time in his office, and attempting to come up with a new novel, a time consuming effort that is also deteriorating the relationships with people around him. Hank is possibly the most complex character in the film as he flirts constantly with his students, but when they refuse his advances, he degrades and humiliates them.

His sexual degradation is an extension of his emotion towards sexual frustration and his jabs at students for being better writers. While he toils to create desperately, his students (many of whom, he admits) are better, without even trying. His frustration is exemplified by his humiliating of another student, a very embarrassing sequence. In many ways, this does present similarities to another human study "Closer", but while it's not as flashy, it's much better because it challenges the audience to test their morals while the characters test theirs.

The ending hints heavily at the potentiality of violence approaching the seeking of ending a relationship with seemingly no exit. It's an ending that feeds our violent assumptions heavily, as it did mine, and inevitably there's just no easy answer. But the film is beautiful in its gray toned themes and incredible acting that really made this a film very much worth watching.

In the end, director John Curran directs an excellent character study and dissection of marriage and love while the entire all-star cast of pulls in excellent performances.

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