Next Stop Wonderland

Rating:
Summary: Almost perfect...
Review: A brilliant movie done in only by a couple of far-fetched plot twists. Hope Davis is ready to be launched into superstardom, and director/writer Brad Anderson somehow manages to breathe life into a very stale genre (that of romantic comedy). No wonder Miramax has a $6 million production deal with Anderson.

Rating:
Summary: Kind of "Sleepless in Boston" with great bossa nova.
Review: A wonderfully funny and sweet movie. Don't understand why it got an R rating, there is no sex in it to speak of. The music is just great, Astrud and Joao Gilberto, Walter Wanderly, Toots Thielmans. Hope Davis' performance is understated but so pivotal. This is simply a most enjoyable and often hilarious movie. I will be first in line to rent it and then buy it when the price comes down a bit.

Rating:
Summary: This indie picture's cynicism was disappointing & unromantic
Review: Although the acting was good I felt that the actors mumbled. It had a cynical approach, I felt, and honestly I thought there was no chemistry between the fated future lovers. The best thing about the movie was the soundtrack, which I bought.

Rating:
Summary: Genuine
Review: Anyone who has gone through streams of mismatched dates/relationships & is left affected, will like, no - will understand, appreciate & relate to this film.

Hope Davis plays a sincere & real character who is left once again by her live-in boyfriend. She remains in Boston & in the least pathetic & most real way possible (for a film) attempts to understand her aloneness until her diva mother puts a personal ad in the newspaper in search of a match. What follows after having placed the ad & her checking the responses out of curiosity are a lot of heart-felt laughs, honest feelings & the interest in the right kind of love.

You can't read about this film without also being recommended the soundtrack, which includes some previously unreleased tunes by the daughter of bossa nova creator (Joao Gilberto), Bebel Gilberto.

"Very Bossa Nova", indeed.

Rating:
Summary: HANDS OF FATE?
Review: Clever dialogue, reality-tinged relationships, and the slow-moving hands of fate converge in this overlooked indie film. Hope Davis gives an understated and convincing performance as Erin, a nurse (med school dropout) whose long-time live-in radical activist boyfriend (a brilliant Philip Seymour Hoffman) leaves her in the first moments of the movie. She seems to enjoy her single life, but her mother (Holland Taylor) doesn't think single life is healthy and places a personal ad on Erin's behalf. Meanwhile, a parallel story ensues about a man, presumably with some shady/underworld connections, leaving the plumbing industry to pursue his dream of becoming a marine biologist. Throughout the movie, this man's path crosses Erin's path, but they never meet. When Erin decides to check her personal ad mailbox, she finds that she has received an overwhelming response and decides to go on several dates (this is a fascinating part of the film), including a date with the plumber-turned-biologist's brother. The film is not a masterpiece, but it is a lighthearted look at single life and people's interactions. It explores some genuine perspectives on interacting with other people and finding the right connections to make these interactions into something more substantial. Highly entertaining.

Rating:
Summary: Two Hours I will NEVER have back
Review: Consistentcy is the hobgoblin of little minds. Well this mocie sure is consistent in being awful. I regret the two hours I lost, when I could have been reading, writing, swimming, bicycling. Seeing this movie made me realize how precious life and time is. Why I spent my time watching thin acting all around, unfunny jokes, and people trying to assasinate blowfish, I'll never know. Erin plays a quite annoying women who is never happy. Alan is an ex-plumber, who can convey less emotion than a stone. The movie is bizarre (and why a stop would be called "Wonderland" I'll never get) and boring. It feels like something recycled. All of the old, witty fresh dialogue is recycled from past movies, and doesn't hang right. Next time you feel like getting a romantic comedy fix, rent "Romancing the Stone" or something-or better yet, why not read a book? I would have rather done that.

Rating:
Summary: Hope Davis: Queen of Wonderland
Review: Do we really need another soppy romantic comedy about thirtysomethings in the big city? Watching NEXT STOP WONDERLAND, the answer is "Yes." As I prepared to be depressed beyond reason by two wonderful people ending up alone (and pleasantly disappointed), I ended up laughing unexpectedly at the humor cropping up in odd places. Alan Gelfant is charming and sympathetic in his hilarious aquarium-heist subplot. Philip Seymour Hoffman (as in every movie he's done) takes a character that could have been a bland stereotype and puts his own indelible stamp on it. H. Jon Benjamin (the slacker, layabout son Ben from the "Dr. Katz" show) is hilarious as one of Erin's loutish blind dates. Holland Taylor brings the frigid high-class sexiness of Judge Roberta Kittleson from "The Practice" and "Ally McBeal" to her role as Erin's mother. Roger Rees is hilarious and sleazy as the biology teacher. It's also refreshing that the movie takes place in Boston and not in New York (memories of YOU'VE GOT MAIL). The main attraction, of course, is Davis, who incarnates Erin better than most actresses could have dreamed of doing. Even though it's not in theatres anymore, this is an outstanding date movie (practically as good as FLIRTING).

Rating:
Summary: Hope Davis: Queen of Wonderland
Review: Do we really need another soppy romantic comedy about thirtysomethings in the big city? Watching NEXT STOP WONDERLAND, the answer is "Yes." As I prepared to be depressed beyond reason by two wonderful people ending up alone (and pleasantly disappointed), I ended up laughing unexpectedly at the humor cropping up in odd places. Alan Gelfant is charming and sympathetic in his hilarious aquarium-heist subplot. Philip Seymour Hoffman (as in every movie he's done) takes a character that could have been a bland stereotype and puts his own indelible stamp on it. H. Jon Benjamin (the slacker, layabout son Ben from the "Dr. Katz" show) is hilarious as one of Erin's loutish blind dates. Holland Taylor brings the frigid high-class sexiness of Judge Roberta Kittleson from "The Practice" and "Ally McBeal" to her role as Erin's mother. Roger Rees is hilarious and sleazy as the biology teacher. It's also refreshing that the movie takes place in Boston and not in New York (memories of YOU'VE GOT MAIL). The main attraction, of course, is Davis, who incarnates Erin better than most actresses could have dreamed of doing. Even though it's not in theatres anymore, this is an outstanding date movie (practically as good as FLIRTING).

Rating:
Summary: So, so
Review: Even though many of the right ingredients are here, this soup ends up a bit thin. The two leads turn in fine performances and there is lots of clever, insightful writing. There is, however, a large lemon on the set souring this film-and that is its tiresome guys-are-jerks stereotypes. In dating hell, to be sure, there is no shortage of horned, pitchforked women. Next time, Brad, chill the male-bashing and spread the flaws a little more evenly.

Rating:
Summary: Sweet
Review: Every once in a while, I decide not to post a review of a film because every other reviewer seems to have covered most of the points I'd wanted to make. With "Next Stop Wonderland," this was true right down to the very vocabulary I'd use. It really is a "charming" film, its musings about "love and destiny" remain just that, musings, nothing too heavyhanded or mysterioso. As an evening's entertainment, with or without the one you love or would like to love, by your side, it's hard to beat. "Not a masterpiece", but very good, and "quite original."

But those bases had all pretty much been covered, so what was the point in just adding another positive vote? Well, upon a second viewing I realized that there were still a few points to be made re: "Wonderland." One of the reasons that it doesn't come off too cosmic in its probing of love and fate is that the dialog and the acting are so authentic. The characters talk like real people--some you might actually pick as friends yourself and some you definitely wouldn't, but real people nonetheless.

And the acting is right on the mark. I always thought that Holland Taylor deserved her Emmy for her work on "The Practice", but I did tire of that show after a while. Her Roberta Kitelson character on that show was deftly portrayed, but she manages to do so much more with her few minutes on the screen here. The intelligence that she injects into each line of dialogue could be used in a master acting class. She's that good.

Of course, it may have something to do with the fact that the director was her nephew--there's nothing like keeping it all in the family--still he couldn't have chosen a better actress for the part of Erin's mom. The only false note is her name--her character is too old to have been named after Piper Laurie, and even in Laurie's case, it's only a stage (screen?)name.

Of course, it's not just Taylor. The whole cast is very good. I have to agree that Hope Davis deserves a lot more attention than she has received. This should have been her break-out movie, of course, but I guess it wasn't seen by enough people. With the right project, though, she could at least get the kind of attention Hilary Swank and Laura Linney have achieved in recent years.

One other little apercu: the first time I viewed this movie, I was not all that impressed with the camera work. On a second viewing, the cinematography seems all of a piece with the naturalistic dialog and acting style. Neither lead (Davis nor "leading man"--scarcely the right term--Alan Gelfant are always shot at their best angle. Sometimes they seem downright plain...sort of like, you guessed it, real people. And that's sort of the point: these are average people, decent people leading unremarkable lives, but ready and eager for some ordinary miracle to come their way.

The movie's very humility makes it all the more endearing. You genuinely come to like these folks, and feel as though you know them. They're just authentic enough, that when the two leads finally do meet at the end, after so many near misses, you can't help but say, "Well, finally!" With almost any other movie, you'd being saying, "Oh, get real!"