NEXT STOP WONDERLAND (1998)
Rating: 3 stars (out of 4.0) ******************************** Key to rating system: 2.0 stars - Debatable 2.5 stars - Some people may like it 3.0 stars - I liked it 3.5 stars - I am biased in favor of the movie 4.0 stars - I felt the movie's impact personally or it stood out *********************************
Directed by: Brad Anderson
Written by: Brad Anderson, Lyn Vaus
Starring: Hope Davis, Alan Gelfant, Victor Argo, Cara Buono, Holland Taylor, José Zúñiga, Robert Klein
Ingredients: Fate
Synopsis: NEXT STOP WONDERLAND is a pleasant, independent, romance movie which explores the idea of fate in romantic searching. Basically, a gal and a guy (who are unknown to each other) are fated to get together and become soulmates, but they keep narrowly missing bumping into each other throughout the movie, until guess what happens?
The lady is a nurse named Erin (Hope Davis) whose activist boyfriend has just left her. The man is a nice guy named Alan (Alan Gelfant) who is burning the midnight oil studying to be a marine biologist, but comes from a family business of plumbing. Both are attractive, middle class types, living around the Boston area near the Wonderland train station. The background music is soft and Brazilian.
Opinion: If your romance life has ever gone down the tubes - - say, you've just been dumped (or duped) by a potential boyfriend or girlfriend and end up sitting alone in a theater watching a movie - - you'll understand the humor and appeal of NEXT STOP WONDERLAND, which makes subtle observations about people looking for love and advocates the notion that fate has predestined a partner for us all. It's just a matter of accidentally bumping into them on a train or something.
Unlike the tired formula of "girl meets boy; girl loses boy; destiny throws them back together" NEXT STOP WONDERLAND is an exploration of the myriad coincidences and all the little near misses that happen BEFORE the momentous "girl meets boy" in the first place.
Bucking this year's embarrassing trend of pairing old guys with romantic partners less than half their age (Ernest Borgnine with Jenny McCarthy in BASEKETBALL; Nicholson with Hunt, et cetera) instead of with normal ladies, Hope Davis and Alan Gelfant do an excellent job as the people who are oblivious to what fate has in store for them. In the movie she's 29 and he's 35.
Reviewed August 30, 1998
Copyright © 1998 by David Sunga This review and others like it can be found at THE CRITIC ZOO: http://www.criticzoo.com email: zookeeper@criticzoo.com
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