Review: Next Stop Wonderland
Starring: Hope Davis, Alan Gelfant, Victor Argo, Jon Benjamin, Cara
Buono, Larry Gilliard, Jr., and Richard Klein.
Review by: Joy Wyse
This is one of those titles, like Good Will Hunting, that I have trouble remembering. Is it just a coincidence that both films are set in the Boston area? When you realize that Wonderland is one of the stops on the transit line, it makes sense.
A winner at the Sundance Film festival, it deserves the award. This really seems like a home movie and that is a sincere compliment. Unlike mainstream productions we see the faces of the players complete with imperfections rather than coats of makeup. Their hair, beards, clothes, etc. are like those of real everyday people. It makes it that much easier to believe that these are real everyday people.
Hope Davis plays Erin Castleton, a nurse who discovers that her live-in political fanatic beau is leaving her, again.
Alan Gelfant plays Alan Montiero, an aspiring marine biologist who has been working as a plumber for his father.
Both Erin and Alan have problems with their parents, their friends, and their lives. Throughout the movie you see how close that the two come to meeting, but they always manage to just miss each other. And, you do want them to meet. Erin's mother places an ad in the Personals column hoping that someone will answer who will save her daughter from a lonely life. Goodness knows, the mother isn't lonely!
Alan's buddies answer the ad, but he doesn't. Entwined are stories of political corruption, gambling and the debts that they cause, the media attention to a balloon fish, an inept security guard, and a wonderful sound track featuring great piano jazz. Most of us stayed through the credits, mainly to hear the music.
Unlike Good Will Hunting, this film has absolutely NO bad language, NO nudity, NO sex, but plenty of good feelings. It's excellent. I can't stop thinking about it. And, I want to see it again.
I'll only give it a B, however, because it is too much like a home movie. There was a lot of editing that was just too distracting. It was as if they hadn't shot enough film to make the necessary cuts. I wonder what they would have done with a bigger budget.
See you at the movies.
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