Predictable, but cute. It has a bouncy pace that is tricky to maintain for a full film, but this comes pretty close to achieving that. Most of the performances are great — I particulalrly liked Jena Malone in the lead. I don’t think I’d seen her in anything before. She has an incredibly sympathetic quality — even when she wasn’t doing anything in the scene I found myself looking at her. Maybe it was just because she reminded me of Ann’s cousins. (Ann has a handfull of cousins who all look very similar; now I know they all look like Jena Malone!) Alas, the film does suffer by having Macauley Culkin is a significant supporting role. There’s a reason you never see this guy anymore. He is a terrible actor. A black hole. Some people can squeak by unnoticed. He can not. I feel bad for him and I feel bad for the filmmakers who needed “a name” to make the film more marketable. It happens.
