Nothing about this movie would normally have caught my interest--the subject matter, actors, etc are all outside of my normal "zone." I'm not even sure what made me hit 'play' on Netflix that night, quite frankly. But just as Harry Potter creates its own world with its own characters who draw you in to their version of 'reality', so did this movie somehow convincingly make me want to suspend my protestations and just 'go with it.' I think the two main characters' acting were quite genuinely believable, which helped. The cinematography is also quite lovely, so it gives the viewer something aesthetic to appreciate as well. Yes, I absolutely think the plot (particularly towards the end) was predictable and even clumsy in execution, but again, I found the characters themselves so enjoyable that it didn't bother me for some reason. The supporting cast (people like Olympia Dukakis) also kept a tone of authenticity running through what would otherwise have been a fairly poorly written script. (I only mentioned Harry Potter in an attempt to give an example of an alternate world being put forth in a believable way--the films are not really comparable in any way, aside from the fact that they deal with magical elements
and even those are in a very different way.) If you just want to watch something kind of new and different, with pretty good acting and a plot that's off the beaten path, I actually recommend giving this one a go.
