People are voting emotionally.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

I've seen this movie a number of times, and it still has the ability to raise questions and provoke discussions for me. There are so many possibilities that are never definitively answered. SPOILERS AHEAD: For example, when Madeleine looks at Oliver's wallet, does she find his identification, proving he's not the movie director, and she goes on pretending to believe he is? Why was the supervisor of the homeless shelter so willing to accept the baseless accusations of the others against a man who wasn't there to defend himself? Why does Oliver leave Madeleine looking sad that he's seemingly rejected her, as they were about to make love? Was he just unable to go on with the pretense anymore? And what is the exact relationship between Madeleine and the guy who seems to be her ex-husband? He appears to be living downstairs in the same building, but it wasn't all that clear. The true point is, of course, the fundamental loneliness of human existence, and the need to reach out and make a connection with others, something that Madeleine and Oliver experienced briefly. I feel the seduction scene between the somewhat intoxicated Madeleine, and the slightly less intoxicated Oliver ,is both strange and hilarious. You really don't know where that scene is going for a while. At first, I thought she was being cruel,and really putting him down, as she was obviously taken aback by the true story he told her. But when she leaned into him and touched her forehead to his ,and claimed, in a goofy dramatic voice, that she had drugged his drink with something that would turn him into a potted plant, as she had done with her other victims, and he grabbed her and began kissing her, leading to the staircase seduction, with them mostly dressed ,and she on top, I realized I'd seen something truly original. Recommended for viewers who enjoy a slow, thoughtful kind of movie, that makes you think a lot about apparently small stuff that's actually pretty important in our lives.

while, watching this movie, it keeps on pleases me when i'm reminded that the director is internationally raised and I'm very familiar with Queens. the story gives you messages in a good, digging way that you agree with and everything the characters say are poignant especially towards the end, and relationships are very real, the asian daughter added to a really great touch to the film. one thing i thought would be really interesting was if, in the end, the movie actually suggests that Oliver really is Matthew the film director. other than that, i didn't quite understand what the shelter guys were talking about most of the time.

The film's gritty outer-borough images of Queens, familiar to any born and bred New Yorker, got my attention instantly. But it was the film's two principal characters--both middle-aged, both survivors of difficult lives--that sustained it. He, an out-of-work middle management type, is a victim of corporate downsizing now living in a homeless shelter among a multiethnic, multiracial horde of down-and-outers, where he struggles to maintain bare-minimum standards of privacy and personal hygiene--and where remnants of his middle-class life set him apart from his surroundings. She, a faded beauty and still-struggling actress, maintains an oddly genteel life in a rundown two-family house nearby, surrounded by weedy lots and shuttered factories. As they meet and proceed to remove their masks, a kind of love story--brief, impossible, and ultimately doomed, is ignited. This is a beautifully shot and acted film, and a deeply affecting one.

I went to see this movie because I know the producer Amy Hobby. I was very pleasantly surprised at what a nice film it is- a look at two lonely people who meet for a day and are a little better for knowing one another. The sound was muddled on the print I saw- but the overall effect was a nice film for an afternoon- honest filmmaking with people who look real, not the pretty boys of Hollywood... if you see it at the video store rent it for a pleasant experience.