Everything is spot-on: Roger Deakins' cinematography, the cast led by Tommy Lee Jones and Javier Bardem, the pitch-perfect dialogue, subtle pacing, precise editing and masterly storytelling.
The vagaries of love are evoked in the subtle pacing of the choreography, from momentary repose to the sensual heat of two bodies pulling close and pushing apart, the space between them electric.
After a minute or so, with a subtle quickening of pace, her activity changes.
This is achieved through conventional or reverse swing, by subtle changes of pace and angles or by simple seam movement.
Vettori bowls slow left arm, spinning the ball with his fingers and relying on subtle variations of pace and flight to fool batsmen into making mistakes.
Sharma gives himself room, but a subtle change of pace is enough to send his drive into the hands of Senanayake as a shortish extra cover.
He was immediately into his stride, hitting his ground strokes with confidence and warming an appreciative crowd, who were shivering on a chilly and overcast afternoon, with his customary mix of drop shots, lobs and subtle variations of pace.
It is a subtle and beautifully paced story told in retrospect by two actors sitting side by side and addressing the audience as if it were a jury or a therapist.
The sextet began with Ashraful, included the demises of Javed Omar, Habibul Bashar and Aftab Ahmed - the latter two in successive deliveries - as the Bangladeshis struggled to deal with his subtle changes in pace.
At his best, he outmaneuvers his opponents with subtle shifts in pace, spin, and direction, outthinks them by anticipating their shots, and deflates them by pulling off the sharply angled, apparently effortless, and clearly impossible winners that his fans have come to expect.
"Zebra", with it's slight shift in pace, subtle harmonies, nice twangy guitar and soaring keyboards briefly rouses the crowd from impending catatonia, while "Used to Be," a hypnotic, nostalgic tune about looking back over a relationship, where Legrand's voice fuses eerily with the keyboards, loses a lot of its power from the indistinct lyrics and receives only muted applause.
