Penelope Ann Miller in Chapter Zero (1999)

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Professional writers may not be the most obsessively self-examining segment of the white-collar workforce, but they are the fellows who write the stories; so it is only natural that the hero of writer-director Aaron Mendelsohn’s Chapter Zero (1999) is also a writer. A novelist of some acclaim and financial success, Zero’s protagonist can’t help but be on the lookout for a reason to reevaluate the constant inner scrutiny of his life’s achievements and ambitions. Starting a relationship with a new publisher is as compelling a trigger as any other, especially when the book-broker turns out to be a sultry, erudite temptress whose curiosity about the novelist’s twisted instinctual drive rivals the intensity of his own.