Eureka received numerous negative reviews, but I’m happy that I ignored them though I wouldn’t heartily recommend this film to casual moviegoers because of its abstract quality, sexual content, nudity and occult content. I only watched this film because it features a young Rutger Hauer of Blade Runner fame, but I was captivated by the mythic story. There Will Be Blood was a cowardly enterprise in comparison to this surrealistic journey to damnation-obsession leading to exile, destruction & loneliness for two characters. It may have been inspired by Sir Harry Oakes, but it felt like Prometheus (Greek legend, not the movie) meets Midas meets Faust. It also has a tantalizing Jacob’s Ladder feel which makes us question whether what we’re seeing is what is happening. The film is also weak when setting up a proper spiritual polar opposite to Hackman’s character. Is it his son-in-law, the daughter or the gangsters? I think that the son-in-law & daughter occupy that role simultaneously for awhile, but the movie also wants to use them in other ways: the son-in-law as someone who never has a eureka moment or curse and the daughter who does. If the movie had emphasized the latter more, I think that the story would be stronger. It came out of left field when the film’s narrative uses the son-in-law as someone who was without when in my opinion, visually, he did, and it left him as devastated and alone as they were. Sometimes a movie’s images are more important than the words. Eureka is weaker when it tries to tell the story through characters instead of imagery. Because it is a film in three acts, it should have more solidly divided the three acts amongst the three most important characters instead of diluting it with autobiographical details of gangsters and business deals though it is germane to the real life inspiration.