I enjoyed the whole depth behind this movie. This is a family who aren’t very close to begin with, and each character is completely opposite to the next one. Kate Hudson is enjoyable as the flirtatious man-eater. Her plot was probably the best one as she manages to fall head over heels for this snake. Frances O’connor gives a radiant performance as the meakish bookworm of the family who also becomes interested in Adam and gets involved in a lurid affair with him. Adam is also a very interesting character; I think Adam is more of a symbol in this movie than an actual character. He is the quintessential man that each of these people picture and often he gives them what they want or desire through intricate planning. We never truly learn anything about him and whenever he does talk about his past, his stories are altered for the people he’s with simply to charm them and win them over through pity and sentiment.
He’s a seductive slithery snake that manages to get to these women easily yet it brings them closer together. The problem with this movie is that the entire movie is told from different points of views and none of the story have barely any interesting points in this to make it enjoyable. Each of these characters are void of any morals or family values and drop their pants for this guy at the drop of a hat. And in the rare cases that they don’t, it’s barely respectable. The characters in this story ring are so unlikable and despicable that I found it hard to become truly interested in this at all. This guy must be the devil or something because he attracts all these people around him and he looks like a zombie for god sake.
All these women and, yes, even men find him hard to resist his character, which is hard to believe. The movie has a very cynical approach to love, romance and family values as it constantly shuffles its characters around as they backstab each other without conscience or thought about feelings and it drove me insane. The movie’s plot is barely interesting to begin with as each character has their own story and point of view on how they picture this man, but there’s barely anything to like within each one. This is a quirky story filled with dislikeable characters, and ultimately fails when it comes to plausibility and depth.