John Sayles is a filmmaker at home everywhere in the world--mythical South American countries (Men with Guns), Texas border towns (Lone Star), West Virginia a long time ago (Matewan). But wherever he goes, he finds ordinary people who turn out to have extraordinarily complicated back stories--stories that often have kinks in them that even they are unaware of.
As a stylist he's always seemed sort of prematurely mature, more earnest than flashy. But that gravity is also the source of his ripening strength; at a time when characterization is in short supply at the movies, Sayles keeps finding troubled, intelligent life...