Love in the Time of Money

Love in the Time of Money tells the story of nine New Yorkers looking for connection and intimacy in the big city. Based loosely on Arthur Schnitzler's Reigen, it flows from episode to episode like a poetic homage to a location and the tumultuous source of its magic. But it is the dialogue and the treatment of the situations, rather than the situations themselves, that truly distinguish Love in the Time of Money from other films of its ilk.

Creating the cinematic chain are a streetwalker having a bad first day on the job and her deceitful client; a frustrated woman married to an art dealer with a repressed secret; an artist who becomes intoxicated by a beautiful receptionist ready for a change in her relationship; and a lovesick psychic who tries to save a desperate man.

With an obvious talent for eliciting succinct performances from a terrific cast, director Peter Mattei brings together an ensemble group of actors who manage to give depth and true sentiment to their characters, despite the brief period of time the constraints inherent in the mosaic nature of the film allow them on screen. They penetrate the souls of their characters' broken hearts and allow their lifeblood to color the celluloid.

Love in the Time of Money marks the debut of a talented director with a pristine ability to capture the emotional anguish that accompanies those unforgettable chapters of life in which love either fades away or is snuffed out.