Beauty in Trouble (2008)

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The movie begins with a flood that threatens Prague literally; it ends with a flood of emotions that threaten to undermine a potentially happy relationship.

All the characters in Petr Jarchovsky’s screenplay are drawn in shades of gray. The result isn’t so much a morality play as an amorality play.

Excellent ensemble dramedy, which avoids mawkishness while keeping its characters complex and treating even the least likable of them with a welcome degree of empathy.

The filmmakers seem more interested in running the camera over Marcela's body than really figuring out who she is.

Beauty in Trouble uses another kind of catastrophe to reveal the true nature of its central characters.

Petr Jarchovsý's script is elliptical, building the story through a succession of small scenes whose import is not always immediately obvious.

[A] well-observed tale, one with no heroes or villains, just people trying to make something of the situations in which they find themselves.

For a class-conscious farce that’s at least serious enough to borrow its title from Robert Graves, it’s impressively unaffected and utterly watchable.