After the Wizard

This ambitious and thoughtful family film works around its low budget and middling production values with a lot of heart, imagination, and earnest performances. Jordan Van Vranken stars as young orphan Elizabeth, who maintains she is actually Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. Stuck in an institution with other children, where she worries the orphanage's aging director (Helen Richman) and her by-the-book, disciplinarian replacement (Loren Lester), the adamant Elizabeth just might be telling the truth. It turns out that the Tin Woodman (Richman's son, Orien Richman) and Scarecrow (Jermel Nakia) have fled a disturbingly chaotic Oz in order to find their Dorothy, traveling a long way through many U.S. states to get to Kansas. On their journey, the pair meet a lot of sometimes-incredulous people who help them, most memorably an old, Southern gentleman (Richman's husband, Peter Mark Richman). Writer-director Hugh Gross effectively straddles fantasy and straight drama, ultimately suggesting that the solutions to problems, whether you're a pre-teen girl or a man of straw, lie within ourselves. Recommended. (T. Keogh)