endora60

For the Moment is a two-hour trailer for a good movie. It's all lead-in; it never peaks, just slowly wanders along. There's tons of character background and lovely scenery--some good acting, too--but it never all comes together with any excitement whatsoever...and suddenly it's over without ever having gone beyond what should be the intro.

Think: An expensively-made Hallmark Hall of Fame production. Plenty of longing looks between the two lovebirds, much dialogue that fills time but doesn't advance the story, some 90s political correctness to do with blacks and gays that never could have existed in 1942 rural Canada, guilt for everybody--and you know who the victims are going to be from the first time you see them.

On the upside, Russell Crowe is beautiful.

Great sets and costumes from the '20s, wonderful tender story about a young Jewish boy in Canada and his old-world Grandpa and more modern parents, and some really good acting--except from the one actor who needed to deliver an awesome performance. Jeff Lynas, the kid playing the central character, David, is so bad he brings down the whole production. He can't seem to offer any emotion at all when he speaks; he's monotonally reading his lines as he delivers them. Just hellaciously, frighteningly bad acting. I gave this a 6 because everything else was so good, particularly the sets and Len Birman's performance as David's pie-in-the-sky up-to-date father, but it'd take an act of God for me to sit through anything else Lynas is in.