The Ref

THE REF opens with shots of a small New England town that could only exist in the movies--IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, let's say. The streets are dusted with perfectly white show, the shop windows filled with tasteful Christmas decorations, the houses all beautifully cared for, their windows spilling warmth onto the meticulously clean streets. Into this fairy-tale setting step Caroline and Lloyd (Judy Davis and Kevin Spacey), an upper middle-class couple so biliously disenchanted with one another that it's a wonder their words don't poison all life within hearing distance. If THE REF lived up to its early scenes, it would be a very funny movie indeed, but it soon sinks i...