Richard Crouse

Barney’s Version, based on Mordecai Richler’s final novel, gives Paul Giamatti his most memorable part since Sideways. Utterly compelling as the kind of guy who calls his ex-wife’s new husband with the offer of some nude pictures, “so you can see what she looked like in her prime,” he glides—or more rightly put, drunkenly stumbles—through three wives, an accusation of murder and countless cigars toward a battle with Alzheimer’s Disease. While the filmmaking occasionally veers into television movie territory Giamatti and cast—Dustin Hoffman, Rosamund Pike and Minnie Driver—are by turns touching, caustic and hilarious but above all, entertaining.