This movie is an unremarkable story about an unlikable man. Paul Giamatti does a marvelous job portraying a selfish oaf of a person who contributes nothing to the lives of the people in his orbit. He is a user and a taker who goes through life without introspection or personal growth. He makes for a stellar example of a selfish, emotionally challenged man child of the Sixties who traverses life with a very limited moral compass. Why would any normal person want to see his life history played out on the silver screen? 

I felt that I was sold a bill of goods in buying tickets because it is falsely advertised as a comedy. The few laughs in the beginning are followed by two hours of stürm and drung which were painful to watch with such an unappealing protagonist. I was undecided as to whether I should storm out of the theater, throw a shoe at the screen, or suffer in silence. This time I stayed in the theater until the bitter end, but it didn't come soon enough because of the extended run time of two hours and 14 minutes.

Not having read the novel upon which this film is based by author Mordecai Richler, I can only guess as to his intentions in having a story filled with so many deeply unlikable Jewish characters. I also found myself wondering why such an unremarkable story would get the green light for financing when there are so many novels out there which could have been made into far better movies. Richler does have the name as the author of the 1974 novel, "The Apprenticeship of Duddly Kravitz" and the 1977 screenplay, "Fun with Dick and Jane," which he updated in 2005 for the movie, but didn't anyone read the script for this film?

Barney's first wife, Clara Charnofsky (Rachelle Lefevre), whom he marries in Rome during the Seventies only because of her spurious claim that he is the father of her child, is a selfish, pushy, and annoying slut of a woman who gets by only because of her great looks. Another child of the Sixties who uses and abuses everyone she knows, including Barney, who turns out not to have been the father of her child. Later Barney inexplicably throws her father, a seemingly decent man, out of his apartment after the man had traveled all of the way from America to assuage Barney's grief at her death.  

Barney is introduced to his second wife (Minnie Driver), and their romance ends up in marriage, but why? His parents can barely conceal their disdain for him, and why or even if the second Mrs. Panofsky loves him is never explored or explained. They have absolutely nothing in common. She is tall, elegant, highly educated, and she comes from a well to do Montreal family. Barney's dad, Izzy Panofsky (Dustin Hoffman), a former Montreal cop and one of only two likable people in this movie, considers her to be quite the catch, especially with her looks and her figure, but we never understand what Barney thinks of her. 

Among his many other bad habits besides his lack of communication, Barney smokes cigars all of the time and he drinks to excess. His only emotional involvement seems to be for his beloved Toronto Maple Leafs, which he prefers to watch at the local bar. He owns a television studio modestly but correctly titled Totally Useless Productions, and it has become highly profitable pumping out mindless soap operas filled with aging buxom babes and dated sexual double entendres.

Sadly, his second wife exhibits every single overworked stereotype of the much-maligned Jewish American princess. If I had been Minnie Driver, who really looks lovely here, I would have passed on this role. This was not only not funny, I found it pathetic. Maybe I am being overly sensitive, but I found a lot in this movie to verge on being anti-Semitic.

Barney's marriage is stillborn when he meets and falls madly in love with the woman who will later become his third wife, going so far as to chase after her to the train station during his own wedding reception. Thereafter he doesn't even bother to go through the motions with his second wife. He just isn't there for her, and it is so unfair that he never gives her a chance. This provides another example of his lack of integrity. She is portrayed as a Jewish caricature of a woman, but I felt sorry for her since she deserved better than Barney. He could have made her parents very happy with an annulment right after the wedding, but he lacked the honesty to do this.

The love of Barney's life turns out to be Miriam Grant (Rosamund Pike), a radio interviewer who works in New York. She's gentle and she's gentile, so naturally she is sweet and normal... Barney pursues this shiksa with abandon and roses sent regularly. He doesn't leave his second wife right away because he doesn't want to get "taken" in a divorce, but an unbelievable plot point allows him an out without financial consequences. 

Barney has a self-destructive mechanism to his personality which will sabotage anything wonderful that happens to him. Like an idiot, he gets blindly drunk before his first and perhaps his only luncheon with Miriam right after his divorce. This is not funny, but painful to watch. Why she takes sympathy on him and continues in their relationship is beyond me, but they eventually do get married. Rosamund Pike does play her role to perfection with luminous grace and ethereal beauty.

She is the woman of his dreams, but he isn't there for her either. Years later he passes on supporting her when she returns to work as a host on the radio. He decides that it is more important to get drunk watching another hockey game down at the saloon with his "friends."

Another annoying element in this movie is his best friend, Boogie (Scott Speedman), who goes through life high on drugs and booze, mostly drugs. Barney doesn't like this, but he says little so he essentially becomes an enabler. Besides, his drugs of choice are scotch and cigars. Boogie is another emotionally immature man child who never grows up. 

What really annoyed me, however, was a drunken scene where Boogie falls off the dock at Barney's idyllic vacation home, and then nothing is said about what happened to him. He just fades into black. What was this all about? A cop (Mark Addy) wants to charge Barney with murder, but since there is no body, there can't be a murder charge. Later in the film a "deaux ex machina" moment happens to explain this without really explaining it to my satisfaction. 

But then little else was done in this movie to my satisfaction. Even the end of the movie failed to provide an emotional reward. Here are over two hours of my life that I will never get back. 139 minutes and rated R language and sexual content.