While John Hurt had already honed his magisterial interpretation on stage in London, the involvement of Egoyan is surprisingly appropriate, since a play about an old man remorsefully responding to a taped recording of his younger self obviously chimes with one of the film-maker's longstanding themes, the interaction between technology, memory and self-perception. Within a realist one-room setting, Hurt's performance strikes a compellingly intimate note, as Egoyan's camera underlines a telling sense of drifting time through attentive long takes. The uninterrupted 20-minute closing shot proves utterly hypnotic and deeply moving, a humbling display of a great actor's craft.