Surprising, touching, wonderful

Rating: 8/10 (29 December 2005)

I'm going to keep this reasonably brief.
I mostly recorded this film because I wanted to see James Marsden, so didn't have any expectations with the movie, and I finally got around to watching it tonight. And, wow, this film was wonderful.
Story wise, it's nothing new. True love, hard decisions, awkward parents etc. etc. All standard fodder for a romance movie. However, it pulls it off magically. The actors are brilliant, the characters engaging, the film involving.
Now the thing... I'm almost ashamed to admit this. My eyes were very wet. I don't cry when I watch movies. I just don't, it's not me ever. Yet this film got me. This movie was so wonderfully executed, its story so involving, that it just had me sucked in.
It feels like you've watched a 15 hour film (not in a bad way) by the end, because you get a feeling of knowing these characters so very well and caring for them so much. It's something that most movies fail to capture, and it's a very rare gift, so I highly recommend this movie.