In the film's epilogue, the normally shy and reserved Hugh arrives at work and greets his female colleagues by cheerfully slapping one of them on the rear with his morning newspaper.

He added that Winter "profitably pays as much attention to all the background flummery of the social settings ... as he does to the walking clichés who inhabit them.

He suggested that while the film touches on themes of realism and loneliness, certain elements, such as the story of Emma and Wayne, are more about "how sometimes life is neither tragedy nor fairy tale, just matter-of-factly unremarkable."

He criticised the pacing, commenting that the plot "seems to amble sexlessly for 60 minutes before remembering what film it's in and suddenly jumping to several consecutive scenes of softcore action."

[6] In a review for website The Spinning Image, Graeme Clark comments: "Until the cast begin taking their clothes off, this is achingly slow, and you're not sure if it's meant to be a comedy or not, but things pick up when the mood turns to sleaze ... [All the characters except Hugh] ... come across as pretty strange, illustrating the gap between the sophistication it aspired to and the rather sour, seedy reality it ended up as.