Herald rating: * * *
Running time: 111 mins
Rental: Now
Review: Ewan McDonald
Lawrence Kasdan likes the BIG screen. He helped write The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders Of The Lost Ark and Return Of The Jedi.
He likes the small screen too: little stories about everyday people in everyday lives like The Big Chill, The Accidental Tourist and this one.
Mumford (Loren Dean) is a psychologist who sets up couch in the small town of Mumford. Mumford is also the name of a great writer on towns and cities.
He rents an apartment from the coffee-shop owner, Lily, and begins to listen to people's problems. Soon everyone in town wanders by: Sofie, so chronically fatigued she's afraid to lie down on the couch; Skip, the local Bill Gates trying to develop a cure for his loneliness in his secret lab; Althea, who needs retail therapy, and her abusive husband; the pharmacist-fantasist; a troubled teen.
And the town's two other shrinks would like to know more about this newcomer ...
And that, really, is the movie. No shocks, no special effects, little plot, just a movie about small-town folk.
Someone called it a feelgood movie: "It is the strangest thing how this movie sneaks up and makes you feel a little better about yourself."
<i>Video:</i> Mumford
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