i saw this on a list of alternative valentine's day movies, so i could hardly have been more surprised when it turned out to have zero romance in it. it's a straight kid's movie, and i reckon you'd have to be in a pretty dark place for the theme here of "bringing old, lonely people together" to resonate. as a kid's movie, i guess you could do a lot worse. there's nothing objectionable in here and it's kind of refreshing to see a movie definitely centered on a young girl. there's not much diversity in here for being filmed in louisiana, and the way it ignores how race would affect gloria (the one main character who's black) is either glaringly privileged or charmingly idealistic. take your pick. i guess it's kind of nice that there's not any fantasy in this film, too. personally, i couldn't get enough of creative adventure stories as a kid, but there's certainly a dearth of kids' stories where they confront real-world problems. as an adult film... hard to recommend this. it's cloying. it's cheesy. obvious, emotionally manipulative, and sappy. it's full of clichés, awkward comedy, and ...well, any film that just drops dave matthews in and has him play songs in the middle of scenes is just... cringey. i mean, i enjoy dave matthews and he's not a bad actor here, but... so forced. so unnecessary. (and i was shocked, shocked to see he has 36 acting credits to his name!) the rest of the cast is fine, though the script isn't exactly scintillating. this was elle fanning's 3rd proper film, and she's pretty adorable (but not the lead). the lead actress went on to have a much lower-key career...for me she's probably most famous for growing up to portray beth hamilton, the surfer who went back to surfing after a devastating shark attack. friggin' eva marie-saint and cicely tyson play the grand dames here, and honestly they're too good for this movie. jeff daniels too is always great, but you can't help but feel he just doesn't have enough in the script to work with. i thought director wayne wang was supposed to be a fantastic, arty filmmaker. he did smoke and the joy luck club. after watching this, i saw he also did maid in manhattan, last holiday, and anywhere but here. this film has more in common with the latter three.