What a waste of my time!!!

A Brilliant Conflict

The first must-see film of the year.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Sometimes the number of possible plot variations seems almost unlimited, and sometimes the plot-hoard seems constrained and restricted to a finite number of basic stories and a set of permutations. When it comes to this movie, however, I'm not sure whether I believe in the big set or the little set. It's half-way between. In some ways the premise is familiar—there's a heaven, of sorts, where children hang out waiting for the appropriate time to be born. It's sort of like a big residential school, all the children wearing neat school uniforms, tended by young people in their late teens or early 20s, in a space that's half neo-classical and half office building and all suffused with golden light. One of the children is Milo (Anton Yelchin), a curly-headed kid adept at card tricks and telling fortunes. He likes it there—wherever "there" is—and so when "Mr. Gordon" pronounces him Ready To Go, he's reluctant. The kids sit calmly in a big room, scooting over in line as each of their friends walks through the Door into the bright light and takes the mother's hand and gets born. A nice, whimsical conceit, that manages to be matter-of-fact and sentimental at the same time. But Milo is apprehensive and refuses to go. This means the next kid can't get born, and the team in the golden-light place are worried. Meanwhile, in New York there's a couple waiting for their first child to be born, Elizabeth (Bridget Fonda) and Kevin (Campbell Scott). They're an interesting pair—he is quiet and handsome and involved in some sort of wildly successful artistic production that involves glass-blowing and a gigantic Manhattan warehouse-studio and a large jovial assistant, and he is kind and sympathetic most of the time and loves Elizabeth and even rides a motorcycle in his spare time. The problem is Elizabeth, who is successful at whatever she does, and is well-dressed and quite lovely, and happy with Kevin, but she has doubts and self-doubts stemming from the fact that her father walked out on her and her mother when she was little. She wants the baby, but she's afraid. And just at the time Milo is waiting in the Door chamber, she's going into labour, and then when he runs out, it stops. And so do all other births everywhere in the world. The attendants, in conference, get a telephone call from Upstairs—a little piece of business: the phones are the chunky old rotary ones, but there are no cords. Somebody is going to take Milo to the world for a day to induce him to agree to getting born. It turns out to be Elmore Dahl (Albert Finney), a crusty, jovial, card-playing, con artist, who wasn't bad enough to go Downstairs but certainly wasn't good enough to go Upstairs. He insists on a deal, that if he succeeds, he gets some more time alive, and "He" agrees. Elmore and Milo take an elevator down to an intake unit, sort of a hotel lobby, also illuminated by the golden light, and out they go onto the streets of New York. What follows is predictable: Elmore takes Milo to his favourite places, the Carnegie Deli, Central Park, the Statue of Liberty, and buys him ice cream and other good foods. Milo is amused, but then he's terrified by a Bosch painting in the Met, and even when they get to Atlantic City—Elmore has gotten himself attached to lush, laughing, eager divorcée Anna (Leslie Ann Warren)—Milo is reluctant. And he's disturbed to learn that Elmore abandoned his family, and he can't miss the signs of selfishness in Elmore's sometimes grotesque jollity. So everything is about to fail--everything--the Door will close, no more babies will ever be born. Elmore gives up and tries to go to bed with Anna. Milo wanders on the boardwalk and runs into a weeping Elizabeth, who's been reminded of her absent father, enjoyed a freakish run of good blackjack luck at home with a pack of Atlantic City cards, and then lost at the blackjack table. Milo is drawn to her and tries to cheer her up, using the same techniques Elmore used on him, and it works. Telling her fortune with a deck of cards, Milo realizes who she is—his mother—and has a change of heart, and at the same time so does Elmore. They almost don't make it back; Milo collapses outside the intake door as Elizabeth goes into labour again and Kevin shows up on his motorcycle to take care of her, and Elmore—his grandfather—has to choose to carry him back, thus ending his brief reincarnation. He grimaces as he does so, noting it's a case of the scammer scammed. Mr. Gordon says "He works in mysterious ways." Milo is born, and suddenly births happen again. Elmore is discharged—upstairs. In some ways the plot line is so predictable that one gets the feeling of déja vu, and yet it's done so cleverly, with a nice touch of dry humour in heaven, and with a gigantic performance by Finney, whose New York accent is pretty good, and who is both lovable and outrageous, and with solid performances by Fonda and Yelchin (the very gifted Campbell Scott is underused here)—with all this working in its favour, the movie is surprisingly good in spite of its potential shortcomings.

What would happen if a soul that is ready to reincarnate refuses to be born? Well, in the case of Milo, a young angelic child who loves to play card tricks with the other children in heaven, he is not at all convinced he wants to abandon his present quarters for an unsure time on earth.Never fear, Elmore Dahl, who has been also in the same area, although not where Milo is residing, is enlisted to accompany the boy for a tour of what would be his new home: Manhattan. The first thing Elmore does is to take the young boy, who is having a hard time adjusting to his new surroundings, shopping at Bloomingdale's. After all, if he is going to reside in New York City, he'd better be well dressed! Elizabeth, the young mother to be, has had problems in her own life. Her own father left her when she was a girl, and although happily married to Kevin, a young artist, even the impending arrival of their baby doesn't fill the void in her life. When she appears to be ready to deliver, it turns to be a false alarm, because of Milo's refusal to be born at that moment.Life on earth turns out to be what Elmore was looking for. He made a hard bargain in order to guide Milo around. When he meets an attractive woman, they take a side trip to Atlantic City, bringing Milo along because, since the boy is lucky playing cards, he wants to capitalize on the fact. Little does he know children are not allowed in the casinos. Elizabeth, who also had come to Atlantic City because she feels lucky too, meets Milo and bond. This convinces Milo to take the trip back to earth, but Elmore is duped since he has to bring the boy back, and he will not be able to go out again. Since his job is accomplished Elmore receives a complimentary move "upstairs".Nick Castle's film is a fantasy. While most comments in this forum tend to be negative, we thought it was a light comedy with charming characters, and although we realize where Mr. Castle is taking us, the ride proves to be fun.The film marks the film debut of Anton Yelchin, an angelic looking child actor, who has gone to bigger, and better, things. He is totally adorable without being bratty. His low key presence in the film works well. Albert Finney appears as Elmore, the man who dares to bargain with a superior force. Mr. Finney is fine conveying what this man is like and he gets to recognize where he went wrong in his own life. Bridget Fonda plays Elizabeth, the expecting mother. Campbell Scott, a wonderful actor, doesn't have anything to do as Kevin. Leslie Ann Warren, Allison Lohman, and the others in the cast to a good job under Mr. Castle's direction.Watching this film without expectations will probably will have the right effect on the viewer thanks to Nick Castle and his collaborators.

What were you expecting with this cast and subject matter? No, it is not academy award material but I thought it was a delightful movie. One of my favorites ever! I will have to see it again and see if the acting really is as terrible as some seem to think. I saw this on a flight and had searched unsuccessfully for a theater playing it or the DVD. I had a friend who was pregnant at the time and thought the movie would be great fun for her. Now, of course her child is in Kingergarden, but I'd still love to see it again. Thanks so much for the detail on why the movie was not released in Sept of 2001. At this point, I love seeing movies with the Twin Towners in it, so even more reason to search it out at the movie store! LL

"Delivering Milo" delivered big time! Albert Finney shines as the "guardian angel" sent down to Earth to (so he thinks) help "some kid" see within a 24 hour day that the life the kid was about to begin would be worth living. Refusing to "be born" would not only end the kid's life, but also that of all babies who were to be born henceforth.The premise is even more outrageous than that certain 1946 Frank Capra "sleeper", but I still enjoyed this film very much. Seeing the "man-about-town" Finney character enjoy his "day back on his own turf", constantly loored by temting women from his past, is fun to watch. When at the very end Finney gives up on the kid who seems to have made up his mind NOT to "go for the deal", the old man (and the kid) make a discovery that changes everything.Regarding those who criticised the casting choices of the "Heavenly Officials", I strongly disagree here as well. I found the fact that these characters were all played by youngsters refreshing and effective. Why do we always look for the Lionel Barrymoore type to give sound advise or direction? Why can't a 16 year old have something brilliant to add to a plan?I have seen many films, and a few of them receive 10 out of 10 points on the scale. This is one of them! 10/10