What was so fascinating was being 45 minutes into and being like "I have no idea where this is going at all." Especially having these big movie stars come in for something and in like 2 or 3 scenes, and literally disappearing. The running metaphor is probably the most curious: keep hustling, keep moving, the last thing you can do is slow down [or stop without gas]. Nothing goes really anywhere, but it's thus like the more accurate version of Boogie Nights. No one was ever successful, they just played success for fun until the juice ran out. I was curious why Safdie is the climax per se of the film and it's because that dinner scene is the first with like genuine heartbreak in the film on display. Anyways, fascinating. Like always the second play will start to lay out the nuances.

PTA and Barry Jenkins are the only American filmmakers who care about what faces look like and how they react.