This is one of those urban romances where we follow the lives of two separate lonely people knowing that they belong together but who keep on missing the vital connection. Erin (Hope Davis) is a nurse, she`s just been abandoned by her crusading leftist boyfriend (Phil Hoffman) and she`s doing rather badly at convincing herself and others that she prefers life alone. Alan (Alan Gelfant) is a guy who wants to get away from his plumbing background, he`s studying marine biology and doing volunteer work at Boston`s aquarium. There`s a sort of connection between the two when Erin`s mother, played by Holland Taylor puts an ad in a personal column for her and Alan`s brother and his mates decide to make a competition out of it.
It`s not often you see an introverted depressed woman at the centre of a romance. But then you might ask do we want to? Hope Davis does Erin rather well. But it`s the reality of the friends and colleagues around her that give Next Stop Wonderland an interesting texture. Alan Gelfant`s character is also pretty depressed, although he`s convinced that if you follow your dreams then everything else will fall into place.
This bitter sweet romance is rather more bitter than sweet... and like so many films, it`s way too long. The first half is really quite charming but then by the final half hour you know what`s going to happen, you can`t wait for it actually and you get impatient when it takes so long. There`s a lot of hand-held close-up camera work that is irritating, I`m sure David will agree with me there... The film certainly has its charming moments but not enough of them and they`re not brought together to create a very satisfying whole... David`s comments:A typically self-important Sundance film with the now familiar plot of the people looking for love who only meet at fadeout. Hope Davis is OK as the woman dumped by her boyfriend, but the film spends an inordinate amount of time on the boring and/or stupid men who want to date her and the excessive use of handheld camera becomes extremely wearisome.
