It takes Arturo and Camilla three-quarters of the picture to get together because they're so bristly they can barely see each other without fighting. The text cues us that their problems arise from the difficulties of "ethnicity" in the pre-assimilation era, but the wonderful thing about the picture is that Towne plays the tension between them for comedy rather than pathos. The script makes ethnic prejudice in Southern California palpable (e.g., in Newport Beach, Arturo and Camilla sit down to watch the 1934 movie Dames — in which Ruby Keeler announces her independence with the old catchphrase, "I'm free, white, and 21" — and an Anglo girl moves away from Camilla) but it stops short of turning the lovers into victims. (The treatment of the immigrant subject, with its turbid mix of idealism and resentment, is reminiscent of some of Paul Muni's "accent" melodramas, Bordertown [1935] and Black Fury [1935], though it's much less heavy-handed.)

Arturo and Camilla have more stature than, say, Julianne Moore and Dennis Haysbert in Far From Heaven (2002) precisely because we see that they're primarily victims of their own reactiveness. Fante and Towne give them enough existence to make mistakes, and so we can identify with them without sinking into self-pity. Because they're trapped in their emotions, Arturo and Camilla can't see that they're romantic-comic sparring partners: every insult and outrage, every missed opportunity, binds them more tightly. (Arturo can't keep the ardor out of his voice when he's belittling Camilla for wearing huaraches.) Farrell and Hayek both get the joke, and understand that it can't be played too openly for laughs. Arturo and Camilla have to want to be in a grand romance that they helplessly shut themselves out of. The poor fools eye each other with tormented longing while from the outside they appear as married as they could get without a license or ceremony.

Colin Farrell is incredibly good, considering he's nobody's idea of a bashful or sexually inexperienced man. (This is the guy who made a sex video of himself in which he pauses while eating his girlfriend out to say, "Holy fuck! My breakfast, lunch, and dinner right here, I'm not even fucking joking.") Farrell is an unpredictable little bullet of a star. In Minority Report (2002), he nakedly enjoyed stealing scenes from Tom Cruise, as if acting were a competitive sport played one-on-one and aerobically fast, like racquetball. And in Intermission (2003), his ferociously physical hooliganism — swinging a shovel as he ran from a crime scene through traffic — embodied a certain sociopathological allure that has been central to movies since forever. He seemed born for the medium, as much as James Cagney.

I can see why these supporting performances would have made directors think Farrell can do anything, but he can't. In Oliver Stone's Alexander (2004), Terrence Malick's The New World (2005), and Michael Mann's Miami Vice (2006), his limitations became stunningly clear. He lacks the breadth of personality to play an epic hero, even a flawed one. And apart from The Recruit (2003), in which the role of a filial apprentice justified his junior quality, his physical assurance isn't all-purpose enough for action heroes. Even his suits in Miami Vice seemed bigger than he did. (There's more than one set in the game of stardom; Tom Cruise retakes the lead.) When Farrell experiences doubt while playing a commander of men, he suddenly seems puny; the walls of those big-budget movies collapse inward on him.