In The Journey of the Magi (another work whose action unfolds at Christmas), Eliot writes: "[W]ere we led all that way for // Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly, // We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death, // but had thought they were different; this Birth was
// Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death."

What about Gawain? Was Gawain led all that way--far from his home, through ashen forests,…

Not much to add to what others have already said. But I truly love the ending; the light bulbs burn out and our vision of the awful world below the surface fades. We return to the schlocky, artificial plane that we began in, complete with the over-the-top cliches of suburbia. Kyle Maclachlan and Laura Dern are blithely untroubled by the horror they've witnessed, seemingly content to say only that it's a "strange world." (Talk about a euphemism.)

Eventually, we see…

It's nearly unthinkable that a movie like this could be made today without a gesture toward the institutions responsible for the immiseration of the characters on the screen. The closest thing we get is a throwaway aside about the mortgage crisis from Frances McDormand--which, in light of the particular circumstances of her character, seems to be neither here nor there.

For that reason, the movie is forced to amble between vague moral outrage (at someone or something) and, worse, tone…