Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on March 2013

A talented and passionate but as yet unpublished author finds in a used valise a beautifully written story and passes it off as his own, leading to universal but unearned acclaim. This hoary old chestnut of a story usually involves comeuppance of some kind, and sure enough one day an old man steps forward to shatter his false world. For a while I enjoyed the promised intrigue and the solid acting (by Bradley Cooper, Zoe Saldana, Jeremy Irons), but soon this narratively limp melodrama’s awkward, three-tiered, story-within-a-story-within-a-story structure relegated it to forgettable hokum level.