I think that there's a reason for this, one that's built into the story and that reflects Linklater's sharp perception of its implications.
But much of the credit must go to Ms. Crothers, whose ear for breezy dialogue, jaundiced but sympathetic eye and sharp perception of the conflicts between family and career lend the play a very contemporary tone and relevance.
Linda Bassett, as Edie, perfectly captures the character's sudden shifts from rambling reminiscence to razor-sharp perception and she and Robin Soans, equally fine as the occasionally cantankerous Arthur, have the tactile familiarity of a long-married couple.
She has a fine fit of hormonal rage, but, like the other heroines in the slacker-striver romances, she isn't given an idea or a snappy remark or even a sharp perception.
Their flaw, New Yorker critic David Denby noted of Katherine Heigl in Knocked Up, was that "like [Apatow's] other heroines… she isn't given an idea or a snappy remark or even a sharp perception".
But this ability is remarkable enough in its own right, for the cues are often given unconsciously by the human trainer, and detection of such subtle signals requires extremely sharp perception.
The performances by Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard as the repressed would-be lovers are exquisitely modulated; the narrative is tightly constructed (it is, at 86 minutes, Lean's shortest picture); the black-and-white cinematography of Robert Krasker is eloquent, its crispness a neat reflection of the painfully sharp perception the lovers share in their fleeting afternoons together.
And admirable too was his courage to express indignation and compassion within the same breath, while his eyes, full of dagger-sharp perception and canine-soft intelligence, forgave us all.
"In fact, its sharp perceptions and macabre verve make it an often exhilarating read.
Sharp perceptions like this, or the sound of Velcro ripping, or the "strange gurgle" of a razorbill, rise out from passages that seem submerged.
She described him as "a mainstream choreographer who is totally fluent and whose idiom, sharp perceptions and humor bear some relationship to the work of Paul Taylor".
