Next Stop, Wonderland

Director: Brad Anderson
Cast:
Hope Davis
Alan Gelfant
Victor Argo

It really is hard to be a romantic these days. The only way to successfully schmaltz around in movies is to couch it in medieval lore (Ever After) or steep it in the ether of metaphysics (Sliding Doors). But try to make a romance work in the everyday vernacular of modern Boston, and if you're not careful, you'll have half the audience groaning at the dialogue, and the other half not understanding why the two leads would even like each other.

So when a movie like "Next Stop, Wonderland" succeeds—even partially—it is a reason for at least a small amount of jubilation. Director Brad Anderson has managed to wake up a tired theme and give it a few ginseng tablets and a fresh cup of coffee. Hope Davis is Erin, a freshly dumped woman around 30 who has acquired a certain exhaustion when dealing with her romantic existence; sadly compelling, she exudes delicate pinpoints of idealism shrouded in the blackness of her cynicism. At the same time, a handsome plumber named Alan (actor Alan Gelfant) is putting himself through med school and finds himself embroiled in the mob, in his job at the aquarium, and in the unwanted affections of an amorous classmate. Both Alan and Erin threaten to meet a number of times before the inevitable conclusion, but like all predictabilities, the joy is in getting there.

The movie suggests something interesting—that all the best romances, at least in a modern world, are those that allow both partners to "be alone together." It is a sad sort of acquiescence, a little pessimistic and decidedly dysfunctional, but it is also a perfectly expressed idea for those of us stuck in the end of our 20s and early 30s, and wondering if there are any people left that we can road trip with without worrying about the conversation. "Together alone" is "Wonderland"'s best leitmotif in a movie full of nice little touches that never get too clever for its own good. At times, it gets a little too pat—Alan and Erin's life parallel just a little too nicely—but if you don't mind a few coincidences, writer Anderson dismounts nicely in an indie world woefully mistrustful of the crazy big thing called "love."

—Ian Williams

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