Next_Stop_Wonderland

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© Miramax.All Rights Reserved.

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© Miramax.All Rights Reserved.

It’s not a crime being single!

People fall in love all the time. Sometimes the attraction is fruitful and the two develop a meaningful relationship and often marry. Other times things fail to go the way the two had hoped. Not all people have what it takes to make a relationship work. Many do, but often there is a mismatch. Two people may have the ability, but lack the compatible qualities needed to work with the other person’s.

Next Stop Wonderland is about two people whose lives periodically cross but never meet, until the end of the movie. Erin is a nurse who could have been a doctor. Alan is a thirty-something marine biology student who volunteers at a public aquarium hoping to some day be offered a job there. What we see during the course of the movie suggests that Erin and Alan might make a good couple. We really don’t know, only time would tell, but it is certainly good that they finally meet. As the movie fades, we hope that they will get to knew each other and that a relationship will work for them, since we’ve learned a lot about both and it appears they would be a good match. Each has had disappointing relationships in the past, some which we have seen, and it would be nice if they became attracted to each other.

The film affirms what most young people who are shopping for a suitable mate know: The process has many false starts, often requires thoughtful gamesmanship and at times may seem like walking in a minefield. And after one has been in a significant relationship for a while, this is not the end. There can be an uncomfortable awareness that the match is not going to work out, although the person is not quite ready to end it.

The movie begins with Erin, a woman in her late twenties, early thirties, breaking up with her live-in boyfriend who’s leaving her for reasons that have to do with his frustration that she does not join him in his political causes. She is upset, struggles to adjust to being unattached again, but is not as concerned about reconciling or finding another relationship as others are for her, especially her mother. Erin doesn’t think it’s a crime being single. Her mother decides that something must be done and puts a listing of her daughter in the personal ads. Erin is furious, but as callers start leaving messages on her voice mail, she ventures into the often frustrating and disappointing task of screening the callers to cull those who seem worth meeting.

Most of the men Erin arranges to meet are self absorbed and don’t seem to be interested in her as a person. One is dishonest about his status. He’s married. The one man she’s able to open up to, because he’s such a very good listener, turns out to be a therapist, a revelation that is disconcerting to Erin. At one point she realizes that three of the men she has seen have a contest going to see which can get her into bed. She finally ends up attracted to a charming Brazilian who seems too good to be true. (Neither Erin nor we ever find out if he is.)

While Erin goes through what ends up being a fruitless process, Alan has to contend with a number of frustrations of his own. His background and situation are different from Erin’s but, like with her, we sense that, given the right opportunity, he will do well.

Next Stop Wonderland is a film with a simple honesty that offers no happy ending---or unhappy ending for that matter. Observing Erin and Alan, we see how difficult it is for two decent and deserving people to find each other.

Available from Buena Vista Home Video
Rated R by MPAA for strong language and adult situations.