ItsMeWil

I saw this film last night at its advanced screening at the WorldFest Film Festival in Houston. This Canadian production is absolutely marvelous. A feel-good movie about the Holocaust is hard to come by, but this not only fits that description, it refrains from becoming a sappy and trite "let's save the world" flick. Instead, it treats its subject matter with dignity and reveals itself as a poignant film that will cause you to question your own character and faith in humanity. Not only is the story well put together (and based on a true story, at that!), but the acting is terrific, with William Hurt and Julia Ormond delivering outstanding performances. You won't miss the character of Bella Chagall, who steals every scene she's in. Even the minor characters appear to be three-dimensional rather than simple window dressing. The costuming was absolutely sensational; I don't think I've really ever bothered to look at costuming and lighting before but in this case, it's so perfect you can't help but notice. You must see this film!

L.A. in the early 90's. Isn't it awful? But don't give up hope. You can always find a little bit of goodness in people, if you look hard enough. Then they beat you over the head with it.

The cast is terrific and they are quite convincing as aimless Angelenos. The writing, though, is schlock. The direction of Kasdan (the only subtle thing in this film) and the great cast make this a decent movie, but not one you'd want to see more than once. This could have been a study of problems in the L.A. and how the people who live there deal with them. Instead the only cast member missing was Sally Struthers, whining about how for only the price of a cup of coffee, you could move a down-on-their-luck ethnic family into a nice, wholesome, white neighborhood, find true love in the strangest places, and save abandoned children from becoming statistics.

Start off with a WASPy lawyer living in comfy digs who takes a wrong turn into *gasp* a black neighborhood! Oh no! And of course, the denizens of this terrible place move in for the kill, but as luck would have it, a (black) knight in shining armor comes to save Rich White Guy, who in turn feels compelled to improve the knight's horribly lonely life. How about two token black friends? Add some ridiculous and pointless dream sequences to show you just exactly how the characters feel about their lives (obviously the viewer is too stupid to figure that out from just the dialogue and the acting).

The film is, in a word, underwhelming.

This film combines the realistic and the surreal into a delicious, yet quite believable family drama, with just enough sharp humor to satisfy your funny bone. Ellen Burstyn, always fantastic, is smashing as the mother hen of the brood, with very convincing performances by Amanda Plummer as her confused Bohemian daughter, Mary McDonnell as Burstyn's daughter-in-law, and the wonderful Genevieve Bujold as Joselle, the mysterious nun. The film is set in Montreal and nearly all the scenes take place either in a hospital room as the Cooperberg family awaits results from the patriarch's surgery, or in visits to the family's various therapists. A fabulous psychological comedy and superb performances by all.