you'll be able to take something away with you.

Rating: 10/10 (19 June 2004)

Talk about a movie changing the way I look at things.
I never thought a can of Planters peanuts could represent so much, and that pedestrian words like "unacceptable", "delayed", and "waiting" could hold as much meaning. I'd never think about referring to airport doors as an entrance to a city--as opposed to being, well, just an exit of an airport--or find a better justification for why foreigners or new immigrants in "the promised land" (welcome or not) could still be so attached to their home countries...even if (or maybe especially if) the latter is teeming with political and economic problems.
And, of course, slipping on wet floors is always funny.
Yeah, it IS highly unbelievable that a person could get stuck in an airport terminal for months, but I think that the feeling of being stuck in a certain time or place where Starbucks coffee and saltine crackers become a sort of staple food (figuratively, of course) is strangely familiar to most people. :)
I've been trying to compare this movie to others I've seen, but it just won't work. It won't be right to compare it to that language barrier movie with all the being stupidly lost in translation, or that other I'm-Stuck-In-One-Place movie with Tom Hanks holding critical heart-to-heart discussions with a basketball. And, true, I suppose I've always enjoyed movies that could make me laugh (without being American Pie stupid)--but I have to admit that this is the one movie I've ever seen that bears its weight in humor and novelty as well as it encourages thought.
Worth every penny paid, and I paid $32 for it (but that's another story). Am planning to buy the DVD *and* to grab the screenplay off the 'net.
:D