Return of the Secaucus Seven

This is what good moviemaking is about. If you are looking for million-dollar cost overruns, over-rated movie stars, the same crop of (yawn) "special" effects and trite action-movie plots and dialog, look elsewhere. This is young John Sayles doing his absolute best with limited resources. The characters are realistic, the dialog brilliant yet believable and the script does an excellent job of handling the subject of not only growing up, but growing older with a bittersweet sense of humor.

For years I heard this film described as The Big Chill only three years earlier. A pretty accurate description. The plot and characters are similar, but Return of the Secaucus 7 has more layers, and provides more random "slice of life" scenes. Whilst watching this film, you can't help the feeling you know these people, or someone like them. Sayles manages to prove that real life situations can be interesting, funny and touching; unexpected moments can start a chain of life-altering events.

The New Hampshire scenery is beautiful – nice to see something shot anywhere other than NYC or a Hollywood back lot. A testament to friendship, fun and low-budget filmmaking.