Michael is a hyper-literate writer capable of dismissing the work of Rainer Maria Rilke as "infantile nonsense." But he has nonetheless sold out to become a best-selling novelist. His wife has been diagnosed with a brain tumor. She wants him to read her diaries after her death -- and she wants to read his before she dies. The result is a knot of twisting truth and fiction that neither of them can quite unravel. These are not particularly sympathetic characters -- they're self-involved and sometimes precious -- but they're also urbane and witty. Hutton, an always-convincing actor, gave Michael a rueful, cynical intelligence as well as a seductive vitality.