Life is not made entirely of dramatic moments. Between ambition, disappointment, work and the pressures that accumulate with age, there are also the small things that allow people to pause and recover: a quiet evening, a warm bath, a favourite drink or simply a few minutes without demands.
For Al Pacino, one of Hollywood's most intense actors, those seemingly ordinary comforts have a name: anodynes. The word, which refers to something that relieves pain or soothes distress, became the centre of one of Pacino's more unexpectedly gentle observations about life.
