StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Brendon Jones It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

pc95 40 Shades of Blue is a good character drama. Shot with grainier resolution (digital hand-held maybe?), it's earthy as are it's characters. The main ones are an interesting mix, with a foreigner Dina Korzen playing a mixed up but seducing dyed blonde Russian - and the lead. She is tall, gaunt, and looks malnourishy-thin. Without going in too much of the story I also enjoyed Darren Burrows performance as a ticked-off son. One scene towards then end lifted the movie from a 6 to a 7. It was a particularly well done climactic scene between the above mentioned 2. Rip Torn as the father is loud, obnoxious, and almost an afterthought. Of course thats what helps build tension. The dysfunctionality of the family is surely lowly. Still there's a lot of beautifully shot sequences and some poignant dialogue. Worth a watch, if you don't mind a bit of a slow pacing.

marting2-1 Will see Ira Sachs's movie soon. His title "Forty Shades of Blue" may be proverbial, or it may be a line quoted from my Charlie Parker verse biography Blues for Bird, Santa Monica Press, 2001 (Book I xxxviii 3). Whether it is or not, I'm intrigued by many of the comments on the DVD. It seems Sachs is pioneering in terms of angle of vision, interpretation etc. Hollywood movies (except the very best ones) are so blatantly obvious, hackneyed etc. We always need new vision to keep our seeing alert and intact. Obviously Sachs has got it, par excellence. Martin Gray (Your machine tells me I have not written enough about the subject to warrant it being passed on, eventually to Ira Sachs I hope). All I want to know is what source Ira Sachs had for his title "Forty Shades of Blue." I've told you that I'm going to view the movie soon, but I'd like a simple answer to my question. A man who was born in Memphis can surely answer that. Best wishes, Martin Gray.

NYCPainter As several other reviewers pointed out, the principle theme of this film was boredom without redemption, and that's precisely what the viewer experiences. However it does succeed in what seems to be its intent: to show the unrelenting misery and suffocating dullness of its main character's life. . . a good dose of intravenously administered sodium pentathol would have helped the viewer survive this. However, without the aid of drugs, the effect is one of acute claustrophobia and overwhelming apathy as it pertains to the development of the characters. Add to this the endlessly dismal and muddy camera work, and you end up with 107 minutes of wasted film stock. I saw this at the Film Forum here in NYC, famous for the patience of its audience, and for the first time in my memory at this venue viewers were walking out before the end. In one of the few seminal lines of this bomb, the Russian character Laura remarks with exasperation that "Americans are so Spoiled!" Indeed they are. That Ira Sachs was somehow able to obtain the money to produce and distribute this dreary nonsense masquerading as emotional insight was an extreme and unforgivable indulgence on the part of some misguided benefactor.

Steve Ripple First, the plot summary is incorrect in a couple minor ways. Laura, the Russian girlfriend of Alan James (Rip Torn) met him in Russia on a business trip/ conference (according to a long conversation in the film between Laura and Michael (Alan's son). Second they don't live in a penthouse, but on the banks of the Mississippi, in a sprawling 70's era house (NOT luxury but great set). Michael is not a freelance writer, but a literature Professor (as he discusses in a couple instances in the film - but would probably rather be a free-lance writer).I saw this film at the Best of Fest (Sundance) Screening in Park City, UT, knowing that it was the juried Grand Prize Drama winner with high expectations. After having seen several other films, and having been attending the festival for 15 years, I was very disappointed and quite perplexed that it went away with this honor.The film plods along revealing the characters as boring, sad, and shallow ghosts. The only exception is Alan (Torn) who does a wonderful job (but he always place this sort of role - a curmudgeonly, outwardly genial, jerk). The story is fairly simple, and verges on Oedipal themes, however, there is no real impact of the relationship that develops between Michael and Laura, as it takes place in a miasma of moral uncertainty. Alan and Laura are not married; Alan openly courts another girlfriend and has other transient relationships, Laura picks up men in bars and has a fling here and there, and Michael is ambivalent about most everything.The story moves so slowly and the characters have such restrained reaction to what would seem as provocative situations, that the viewer comes away with a sort of numb bewilderment. The dialog is simply awful, and often distracting. Laura goes around saying things that you might expect a Russian Tour Guide to say (which she was year ago). It would be fine if she said and reacted in this way occasionally, from a realistically portrayed film such as this, I want more: more emotion, more anger, more. Laura is just sad - throughout the entire piece.Michael's dialog is even worse. He's a Literature Professor, but seems illiterate. He says things that at times are harder to understand than Laura with her Russian accent. And the content of what he say's are often out-of-place and silly. His character is also the most shallowly portrayed in the film. He is simply blank. It is never believable that he would have a relationship with Laura.Don't bother with this film. If you want to see something similar, but with considerable more depth, see The Ice Storm.