As enacted by Mr. Molina and Mr. Redmayne, this application of a base coat of paint (red, of course) to a white surface became an athletic event – competitive, sweaty and utterly visceral, performed to swooning, stormy music by Gluck.
Mr. McGillin, a musical-theater leading man maybe best known for his long run in the title role of "The Phantom of the Opera," and the lovely Ms. Luker, seemingly ageless both in person and voice, perform an utterly transporting duet, "Lovelier Than Ever," an operetta-style paean to springtime and young love that's perhaps the evening's musical highlight.
But while Labour has suffered criticism for the clear deterioration of the health service - and while ministers have even admitted that in some ways the NHS has gone backwards - it has managed to perform these utterly humiliating U-turns almost without comment.
It was beautiful, different, artful, moving, utterly absorbing, naturally performed and achingly, Gallically cool.
"Beautifully shot, restrained in tone, moving yet utterly unsentimental, consummately performed, and showing a sympathy for its characters that extends even to bullies and cold-blooded killers, Let The Right One In transcends its generic confines, fusing the oldest kind of fury with an aching lyricism that seems entirely new," writes Channel 4 Film's Anton Bitel.
The conclusion to be drawn from the facts of the Wilders' story is not that it is a "danger" for private agencies to be the vehicle for social services, but that the in loco parentis function must be and can only be successfully provided by such agencies or individual families, because government has proved itself utterly incapable of performing this function at even a minimally acceptable level.
Equally impressive, however, is the rare ability to perform a classic song and make it sound utterly new.
Imposing surgical facility requirements on clinics where no surgery is performed "is utterly irrational," the lawsuit says.
If all this sounds off-puttingly dour, then fear not – the sheer joy of watching Delpy and Hawke bicker like an old married couple is utterly unalloyed, their director performing his usual trick of becoming the invisible third person in the room.
It is performed for utterly self-serving purposes: to attain desperately craved validation.
People can perform extraordinary acts of altruism, including kindness toward other species — or they can utterly fail to be altruistic, even toward their own children.
