Jessica Chastain’s wrenching new film The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him/Her is generating awards chatter. Critic Owen Gleiberman gives his verdict.

It could be enlightened or myopic, or maybe a bit of both, but by now it’s close to an article of faith that men and women view the world in overwhelmingly different ways. That divide provides the emotional and structural basis for The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him/Her, a drama, at once epic and intimate, of two married New Yorkers who have drifted apart in the wake of a tragedy. The film is three hours and 21 minutes long, and that’s because it is actually two movies in one. The first half, Her, is told from the point of view of Eleanor (Jessica Chastain), who after being rescued from a suicide attempt informs her husband, Conor (James McAvoy) that she needs to go off on her own. She does, sort of, moving back in with her parents, taking classes and drifting through her memories, trying to come to grips with a universe – and a marriage – that has stopped making sense to her. The second half, Him, is Conor’s story: he’s an aspiring, but failing, restaurant entrepreneur, and though he’s been ordered by Eleanor to leave her alone, he’s compelled to pursue her. Can the two reconnect through the grief that at once unites and divides them?

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