The Great New Wonderful
There are five stories in "The Great New Wonderful," each of them mildly droll and passably interesting, usually in a quirky way. They are all well-acted. What they do not have is a unifying theme. This will be news to the screenwriter, first-timer Sam Catlin, who apparently believes that bringing up 9/11 in the last five minutes magically puts everything into perspective. It seems to have that effect on the characters, but the epiphanies they enjoy don't reach the audience. All we can see is that THEY'RE getting something out of it. What a great cast, though. How Danny Leiner, the director of "Dude, Where's My Car?" and "Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle," managed to get Olympia Dukakis, Tony Shalhoub, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Edie Falco and Stephen Colbert to appear in a film of his, I have no idea. Here they are, though, some of them with only a scene or two, all of them doing fantastic work.
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