Surprised you aren’t giving the “Ulysses” argument here. :)
CK actually has more special effects per shot than many contemporary blockbusters. They just don’t call attention to themselves.
None of the dialog in CK makes me need to rewind to figure out WTF they just said ;) I’m a lot more tolerant of art house movies than their equivalent books.
It’s the smart kind of special effects, there to tell the story not to replace it. And they’re more fully integrated into the movie, CK never stops to say “look at these cool FX” they’re just there. On that level I’d compare it to Monsters, which on first viewing you think has only 2 or 3 sequences of FX, but then you see the interview with the filmmakers and realize that almost every frame has something, they’re just small things like digitally inserted signs.