Us Rating: ***

Mel Gibson plays Walter, a seriously depressed exec, in this insightful dark comedy. Kicked out by his wife (Jodie Foster), he finds a ratty puppet in a dumpster and — yikes — starts talking through it like a ventriloquist uses a dummy. Gibson excels as a man fighting mental illness, managing to project anguish even in the company of the stuffed animal. But the tightly wound Foster is less believable in her role — and their sex scene (which includes the puppet!) is just too awkward to watch.