dreaminess

The screenplay hits the big moments and skims the details, but it also leaves room for director Thomas Napper to lean into flashes of lyrical dreaminess.

In novels like “Lullabies for Little Criminals” and “The Lonely Hearts Hotel,” O’Neill captures both the darkness and the dreaminess of the city in shimmering colors.

He is a deep sigh of dreaminess personified.

Another key problem is that the movie, though appealingly shot in gradations of dreaminess and realism by cinematographer Alwin H. Küchler, is trapped between character study and avenging thriller, leaving both sides starved for oxygen.

Kolesnikov’s blanket dreaminess lent a memory-like remove even to passages of storminess and, in one of the Chopin Nocturnes, a moment of “I could have danced all night” bliss.