Next Stop Wonderland

With two first-rate actors in the leads, Brad Anderson's charming romantic comedy might have been a minor classic; with the radiant Hope Davis as one protagonist and the somewhat stolid Alan Gelfant as the other, it's still a charming romantic comedy. Davis plays a lonely single nurse whose pushy mother places a cheesy personal ad on her behalf without her permission; Gelfant, a mildly hunky plumber and aquarium volunteer who's equally bereft of companionship. The film's premise is that these two souls were made for each other, yet keep missing each other--their paths continually cross, yet each is utterly unaware of the other's existence. Anderson cuts back and forth between their parallel stories until the inevitable final-reel connection, and so each time you find yourself growing a bit weary of Gelfant's puppy-dog soulfulness, there's a sudden jolt of Hope, who manages somehow to dominate the frame even while playing a shrinking violet, and whose encounters with the pathetic suitors who respond to her mother's ad are as witty a dissection of male vanity as has been seen onscreen in ages. Recommended. (M. D'Angelo)