Despite the film's false notes, its balladlike moods ring true.

[It has] a terrific sense of place, something missing from much contemporary US cinema.

By the time we get to the point where the camera is endlessly circling Shepard sitting on a sofa in the middle of the street, it feels as if he and his director were making things up as they went along.

The bitterness of the playwright's vision is expanded by the director's fascinated fondness for American culture