a 7 for me, the acting was good, the intersecting plots were good ...but it didn't show me anything that I hadn't already known or seen before in real life or in a movie. There was nothing original about it to me at all.
I know I'm like the only person who wasn't impressed with it though...it won an academy award and everyone I know swears by it.
I haven't seen many film expressions detail this so intricately, though. And they did it with an ensemble cast, most movies with that kind of ensemble underwhelm. There was a bunch of established stars in that movie and the way they fed off of each other in their roles is definitely rare...
I do agree that it didn't show something that I hadn't heard of or seen, but most people in America don't spend unforced time with people from different backgrounds to be aware of how others perceive them. I can tell you for sure that in parts of Los Angeles people rarely interact away from the comfort zone of their own part of town, and that dynamic exists damn near everywhere. So it was a needed interpretation of LA, one of the most multicultural and diverse cities in the world, and the flaws that exist below the surface...