The Writer's Poke

What keeps me from pulling the trigger and giving this one 5 stars? I'm not sure. Every time I watch it, I really like it, but maybe it's just the unexplained fantasy elements that keeps me at 4 stars. I'm not sure that's fair, but that's just how I feel about it.  "Is this heaven?" -- Shoeless Joe Jackson (Ray Liotta)  "No... (dramatic pause)... This is Iowa." -- Ray (Kevin Costner) I love that joke, and the film does too, because they use it twice. It's funny both times, but maybe once would be enough?  Ray was an English major in college, which says a lot about him. But somehow, he ends up being a farmer with 200 acres of prime farmland in Iowa. At age 36, his life seems alright, but farming was certainly never his dream, and although he's got what appears to be a good life -- happy marriage with a well-adjusted daughter -- he must wonder if this is all his life will be -- an early midlife crisis.  He hears the voice and is compelled t...

The movie starts with a montage sequence, with both Charlie (Adam Driver) and Nicolle (Scarlett Johansson) telling what they like and appreciate about each other. This seems really cute, until it becomes obvious that there must be a reason that they are saying nice things about one another, and then the film cuts to the couple sitting in a room with a therapist (Robert Smigel). In other words, this was all just an exercise assigned to them by their marriage counselor, with the expressed purpose of reminding them that, at least once upon a time, they liked -- maybe even loved -- one another. And maybe they still do, because all of the stuff they mention is nice, and it remains to be seen why they are at a marriage counselor, or what secrets they're hiding that they didn't want to write down on notebook paper at the shrink's request. Wrong. They aren't at a marriage counselor at all. They are at a mediator, preparing for a separation and amicable(?) divorce. They've w...