KnotMissPriceless Why so much hype?

Mjeteconer Just perfect...

Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Phillipa Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

dantonstl So I have been not connected to power or film in awhile, I admit that I have been going to see many films in the last two years. As a summary I poit out Mary Steenburgen, what a great gal! This movie is one intense movie that actually is enjoyable. I had just seen INLAND EMPIRE by David Lynch, and totally wanted to assure that the actress i saw was in fact the very same one who plays a therapist in NUMB. so, Matthew Perry is a smart dude. I acknowledge his friendship with his buddy in a sort of NON fantasy role like Jack Black in Shallow Hal. The interesting and sexy person that Lynn Collins is makes this film a little more exciting as well as intriguing...if not a total bummer. But jump in Mary Steenburgen, and whallagh! awesome sentiment and compensation virtually arousing the males minds in this erotic thriller that insinuates that a mental illness is not to be taken seriously, and that DETACHMENT is a serious issue.

rooprect For some reason I ended up watching 3 movies about mental disorder this week. The first was "Helen" starring Ashley Judd which was very powerful but thoroughly depressing. The second was "The Bridge", a documentary showing people jumping to their deaths off the Golden Gate Bridge. Not as morbid as it sounds, but still heavy stuff. And the third was "Numb" which was totally refreshing.Here we get Matthew Perry's unique brand of humour (charmingly cynical) but much more laid back than you'd expect from his Chandler role on Friends. Here he plays the part of a person who is mature & basically stable yet suddenly hit with an acute case of insanity. In that respect, there's almost a childlike quality to him as he seeks to discover what went wrong. I think that's what makes this so fun to watch, even though the prospect of losing one's mind is inherently depressing.This is no madcap comedy with witty zingers & one-liners. It's more of a situational-laugh thing. Some of the gags are really subtle, like jokes set up without any punchline (which you must infer). A lot of the gags are based on crazy awkward situations. For example, a psychiatrist starts to lose it in a restaurant, talking in a controlled whisper one minute and then yelling at the busboy to "F OFF!" the next minute for filling her water glass. Lol, no punchline required.I think this film found the perfect balance between comedy and drama. Too much comedy, and it mocks the subject. Not enough comedy and it gets depressing. "Numb" got it just right. It has both comedy as well as some insightful, dramatic moments.If you are among the privileged few who have... shall we say... unusual brains (interpretation: total nutcase), or if you know someone who fits the description, you should watch this movie. It'll give you a greater appreciation for the people who have psychological problems as well as those who love them. And it'll do so by giving you some laughs and a smile on your face.

deaustin2000 Numb has to be one of the most idiotic, annoying, pretentious yet pointless wastes of time in the history of cinema, not even a dog, but the product of a dog's hind end. If you want background noise in which the word f... is used in various contexts in pathetic attempts at humor, go ahead and buy the CD. Even as background noise, however, I had to eject this annoying trash at the midway point. I mean, like I could go on with another ten or twenty lines using words such as crap, garbage, outright irritating, but what more needs to be said. Lemme post this and see if it's enough as is. Nope, I need a couple more lines, I guess. OK, I'm thinking about bringing suit against the film's producers. This film elicited such violent emotions in me that I had to slam the eject button to get rid of it and thus ruined a perfectly good CD drive.

rmarb5-1 I have been rooting around for sometime now for a movie that would speak to the inertia that has settled over me in various cycles during the last decade or so. This would be a movie that would address the issue of being a potentially gifted person, but who is stunned by the oppressiveness of modern life: frightening economy, unpredictable jobs, the no-rules relational chaos of post-modernism.The last movie I saw that got to this was "Wonder Boys," about an insightful English professor who couldn't function because of being emotionally stunned. While it is flawed and at times, forcing itself too much on you, "Numb" is that great new movie that gets into the struggle for identity.Matthew Perry does a convincing job as Hudson Milbank, a modern LA freelance writer, trying to find meaning and connection. The film cleverly dances in and out of his early life, showing his times with fittingly remote and narcissistic parents, especially a destructive mother who is played perfectly by Helen Shaver, a great Canadian actress who masterfully conjures cold, chipper, semi-ice-queen figures.It also has a hysterical and realistically frightening bit about a highly credentialed psychiatrist, Dr. Cheryl Blaine, played ably by Mary Steenburgen, who has her own bout with borderline syndrome and sexaholic tendencies, which she can't seem to restrain from unleashing on Hudson, who seeks her help with his condition.The funniest line of the movie comes when she chases him out of a restaurant in a predatory moment, asking him about his family. To which Hudson, in a mid-trot, grunts to Tom, his writer sidekick played by Kevin Pollack: "uh...run." You can't decide whether Dr. Blaine is funny or terrifying, maybe the scariest female character since Sharon Stone in "Basic Instinct." There are so many familiar handles in this movie, I can't even remember them all. Besides the out-of-control, counter-transferring female therapist, let's see...there was -- Spending most of your leisure life in bed being hooked on one brand of inanely topical TV, in this case, The Golf Channel. Many of us have our times escaping into with some kind of nerdy TV; mine is The Weather Channel, for my ex, it is The Fishing Channel, and an old roommate couldn't live without The Military Channel.-- Trying an unending series of anti-depressants, thinking you will find one magic pill to fix you. Hudson becomes so much a regular at the HMO pharmacy, that we see the pharmacist playfully wishing him luck with his latest prescription.-- Being up and out at 4 a.m., insisting this is the only time you really feel good about the world.And there are many more moments I recognize in this movie that come from the benumbing, joyless periods that seem to settle in on us. without answers, at various times in the post-modern world.What director Harris Goldberg does that is so helpful is he makes many of the trapped moments funny and he resists offering up a trite resolution. Hudson finds hope in certain things and soon abandons them, going on to his next illusory beacon. It is a waiting game until he finds the next bit of relief, kind of like real life.