Screenplay by James Gray and Ric MenelloDirected by James Gray
Joaquin Phoenix
Gwyneth Paltrow
Vinessa Shaw
Premiere date: May 19, 2008 (Cannes Film Festival)
R for language, some sexuality and brief drug use.
Leonard Kraditor is a depressed and sometimes suicidal bachelor trying to pick up the pieces of his life after a bad breakup. Living with his parents and helping out at the family dry-cleaning business, Leonard finds himself in an existence that, save for his dabbling in black-and-white photography, is ordinary and stifling. His parents, mother Ruth and father Reuben, hope that a merger with a lucrative business - run by a friend of Reuben’s with a pretty daughter, Sandra - will spark a budding romance for Leonard. But their plan hits a snag when Leonard befriends Michelle, an alluring but emotionally needy blonde who struggles with her own desire for validation from a married man with whom she is having an affair. Leonard gets caught between filial obligation and a longing for escape, and sees in Michelle a partner for his troubled soul.
