The movie also offers a wry portrait of the 60's in Britain, which one character describes as "a country coming down from its trip and about to witness the biggest hangover the world's ever seen."

It is most original when it advances on Betty Friedan in its wry, acute portrait of contemporary suburban women living dangerously, on the tightrope between boredom and self-destruction.

Rueful hindsights abound - "If you look at history, you will see that I was not the first guy to do something really stupid over a girl" - and wry portraits too.

There is a wry portrait of the pride of poets - vanity of poets would be more like it - at the White House meeting.

Allmusic critic Ned Raggett called the song "reflective," stating that it provides "as wry but heartfelt a portrait of her position in the public eye as any."

Chris Rock's new series, a memoir that he narrates, paints an affectionately wry portrait of a 13-year-old growing up in Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn.

And just occasionally, this painter of the wry portrait or telling anecdote manages to convey something more.

Jan Anderson gives a wry portrait of the Miss Reardon who drinks a little.

That Adamson was probably the team's stronger artist can be gleaned from his wry portrait of Hill.