O Amor nos Tempos do Dinheiro

As a fan of such films as "Mulholland Drive," "Memento," and "Before the Rain," I have a predilection for films which require one to piece together clues within the plot in order to distinguish true happenings from false. Initially, "Love in the Time of Money," did not strike me as this type of film, however while driving home, the words of Carol Kane's eccentric pig-tailed telephone clairvoyant came back to me. Kane's character was suggesting that perhaps in another dimension everything is changed by something so simple as a traffic light changing color a half-second earlier. This sensibility is the essence of Mattei's film, which follows the stories of interconnected people who unknowingly affect the fate of each succeeding character. The question which the film leaves one with is: How much of this story really happened?

There is a beautiful scene between Carol Kane, as an aged flamboyant clairvoyant who falls for the young urban Adonis, Adrien Grenier. Notable performances are also given by Steve Buscemi, who plays a struggling modern artist with quiet restraint, and by the gorgeous Rosario Dawson, who plays the conflicted muse of two men.