A famous American soprano is taken hostage along with dozens of others while visiting some banana republic to do a paid gig for a wealthy Japanese industrialist (Ken Watanabe). During the ensuing month-long standoff, the captives and captors, you know, bond and stuff. I read and enjoyed Ann Patchett’s novel, but writer/director Paul Weitz (American Pie, About a Boy) has achieved something very rare here: a bad performance from Julianne Moore. Lazy, amateurish, passionless, poorly acted and not even convincingly lip-synched, this is a tiresome, textbook exercise in how not to adapt a novel.

Nov 15 (100 min)