A nod to Fellini--and that "half" turns out to be a typically dark Greenaway twist. Yet this film, one of Greenaway's most amusing and accessible, actually arrives at moments of tenderness, even love, fleeting though they may be.
Though his film is breathtakingly art-directed, Greenaway wallows in epater le bourgeois nastiness -- his inner naughty child could use a good paddling.