Obviously, loads of people loved this film, but I wasn't one of them. I'm sure they thought that shooting the film in black and white, in a 4 to 3 aspect ratio, with almost every scene dark and dreary was very arty, but I just found it boring. I'm sure that many viewers found it thrilling to watch Pattinson schlepping coal in a wheelbarrow and then shoveling it into a boiler fascinating, but I found it pointless. I don't think I'm giving anything away by saying that the whole plot could be summed up by saying two unpleasant characters, stranding in a remote and unpleasant place tediously descend into madness. I'm sure that many people found this descent to be fascinating, but I found it totally unconvincing. The Dafoe character spouts long, meaningless sentences in a very high-blown, pseudo-classical style that I'm sure many fans thought 'what an interesting character", but my reaction was "what a load of crap" Maybe the Dafoe character is supposed to symbolize something, but to me he only symbolized a wasted afternoon and $9 down the drain.