Brilliantly adapted from James Ellroy's darkly convoluted crime novel, it casts anything-but-A-list (yet) actors as its three leading men, and no two of them are buddies.

He has brilliantly adapted the festival as he has gone along.

Brilliantly adapted from James Ellroy's near-unfilmable cult novel, it casts anything-but-A-list stars (yet) in a story with three leading men, no two of whom can be construed as buddies.

Brilliantly adapted from a story by James M. Cain, with which it has little in common, the picture details the lovers' adulterous scheming for a ripe insurance harvest in Los Angeles, which includes the ugly business of plotting the death of Stanwyck's husband.

Life and Fate is fabulous, mind-expanding drama, brilliantly adapted from Grossman's book by Mike Walker and Jonathan Myerson and delivered with great subtlety by a big-name cast.

And yet Mr. Jordan, as he did with "The Butcher Boy," has brilliantly adapted a difficult work without compromising its complexity.