Robert Altman's much-anticipated broadside at the world of fashion, Pret A Porter is a disappointment. The film's crazy-quilt Nashville-like narrative structure and ensemble casting (Julia Roberts, Tim Robbins, Lauren Bacall, Marcello Mastroianni, Sophia Loren) are a thing to behold, but the story's many interlocking pieces lack overall depth and resonating emotion. There is a grand, satiric statement about fashion and society at the end of the film, and there are hints of an aging, nostalgic filmmaker's scepticism about our post-modern world of short-lived attachments and meanings. But watching this film is a long, long uphill climb, with a lot of thin air to endure before arriving at a destination. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com