Kerry Fox is amazing as a character cheating on husband, while the guy he is cheating with is an extremely annoying ass who nearly tells on her, not because he is moral, but because he is jealous. The character is unbearable, and so is the performance. Another annoying character is the delinquent friend, whose sole purpose must have been just that... to annoy me. Another unpleasant character, though the only one that seems sensible, is the strange bar man, perhaps because I could not figure him out. He just feels so arbitrary, as does that delinquent friend. One performance I enjoyed most was that of Timothy Spall. It was likely the first time I ever saw him (I saw this movie first time several years ago), which is something that instantly earned him my respect.
The writers did quite well in terms of character development here, but not so well on the entertainment side, which is an even more important attribute. Movies are, after all, primarily meant to entertain. In too many places, the movie is hard to bear, and it would be quite strange if anyone involved actually enjoyed the experience of making it. It is all humorless and dull, and full of pain, and disturbed characters.