This weekend, between moving down the hallway and going to a friend's dinner party on Saturday night, Patricia and I watched two films, both of which surprised.

The surprise in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead was just how good Ethan Hawke was. I'd never been much of a fan. He always seemed a little too sure of himself without having reason to be. Here he goes opposite, playing a loser, a man without many choices left in life who nevertheless keeps choosing the wrong path. There's no even keel to his character. He's desperate in his sadness and desperate in his happiness: eyes a little too wide, smile a little too quick. There's nothing comfortable about him at all. I remember when the movie came out last fall but I don't remember Hawke getting much of a write-up. He deserved it. Great cast, of course (I'd watch Albert Finney anywhere, anytime), in a good, painful movie that loses a little something in the end.

The other surprise was less welcome. I assumed Le Souffle au coeur would be a good film — Louis Malle, coming-of-age, sex — but it was made in 1971 and it's set in 1954 and they do nothing nothing nothing to reflect this difference. The haircuts, the styles, the attitudes, all feel like 1971. The haircuts are floppy sixties haircuts, the rebellion has the anti-authority bent of the late 1960s. Seventeen-year gaps are pretty hard to bridge anyway but this one, from uptight to anarchic, close-cropped to free-flowing, is particularly wide. Wish I could've gotten past it but it bugged me every second I was watching.

On the other hand: What's interesting about the film is that it sets up a tension and keeps teasing you with it until you want that tension resolved. Even though the resolution is immoral. In this way it's a little like Paradise Now.

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