Most Underappreciated movie of 2002

I have to agree with most of these posts - I'm surprised how few people have seen or heard of this film. It really gripped me from start to finish and made me think of how easily life/arguments can spiral out of hand. In this sense the film was not that unrealistic as both men were clearly subject to huge levels of stress before the highway incident occured. I thought Amanda Peet's performance as the ideal wife with the ideal life was chilling, and Pollack was fabulous. Jackson was quite heart-rending at times. But what surprised me most was Ben Affleck. I often think that certain actors get branded wooden, bad or even brilliant and from that moment on, most reviewers/viewers perpetuate that impression. It's a bit of a mob mentality approach, which often fails to take each film and acting performance on its own merit. In many of his films (The Sum of All Fears for example which is just a horrible, horrible movie) Affleck is non-descript and forced. But in this film, I thought he was utterly convincing and even quite compelling. Easily his best role to date, apart from his pleasantly nuanced performance in Good Will Hunting. Maybe the director Roger Michell can take some credit for this? His work often strikes me as interesting and nicely-paced, so maybe he brings out the best in his actors...

I remember Roger Ebert loved it.