Unmarried and childless, Hanna (Sophie Rois), host of a cultural talk show, and Simon (Sebastian Schipper), an "art engineer," have reached the point in their 20-year relationship where his testicular cancer operation coincides with her initiating an affair with Adam (Devid Striesow), a genetic scientist. Later, Simon, ignorant of Hanna's infidelity, begins his own fling with Adam after he meets him by chance in a locker room and Adam asks to see his surgery scar. Could Touchstone make a Hollywood version of this? Actually, Tom Tykwer's screwball ménage au trois won't offend many sensibilities nor, despite its samplings of avant garde art and theater and fussy existential discussions, does it transcend bourgeois platitudes. And though he indulges in such stylistic whimsies as split screens and kooky chronology, these efforts tend only to transform the trite into the twee. "Farewell to a deterministic understanding of biology," Adam suggests at one point. It's harder to shake off a formulaic notion of film.
