Sometimes, when everyone around you seems to like a movie – not only like but love, esteem, find transformative – admitting to not liking this film is akin to going to confession and throwing yourself on the mercy of the priest.

For me, this movie is The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. By not liking the film, I feel I am admitting to some greater deficiency – a lack of compassion or imagination.

The film, about a creative man who becomes incapacitated and paralyzed to the extent that he can communicate only through blinking, just screams Important. Directed by Julian Schnabel, successful artist and director of the arty Basquiat and Before Night Falls, Diving Bell radiates moral goodness through every pore of film stock. All I can tell you is it did nothing for me. Forgive me, father…

Grade: C

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is currently available.