"Today, too often, we've gotten used to telling the audience things in bold, in all-caps or underlined, and solving everything for everybody." So says Paul Haggis, the screenwriter and director who won Oscars back-to-back with "Million Dollar Baby" in 2004 and "Crash" in 2005. His new film, "Third Person," is not told in "all caps" — it's an intense exploration of trust and betrayal, about trying to find something real; a film built on an intricate structure of interlocking stories.
"I knew this was a risky way to tell a story, but I like the sort of films that you have to argue about with your friends on the way out of the theater. It's a puzzle, but it's not a Rubik's Cube," says Haggis in a phone interview with The Japan Times, from his home in New York City.
"Third Person" looks at lovers and ex-lovers in NYC, Paris and Rome, with Liam Neeson as Michael, a divorced alcoholic author involved in a stormy affair with a much younger writer (Olivia Wilde), Adrien Brody as a crooked businessman who may himself be getting conned by a mysterious woman (Moran Atias), and Mila Kunis as a divorced mother whose ex-husband (James Franco), a famous artist, is refusing to let her see their child, due to something she may or may not have done.