The Purple Rose of Cairo

Just about perfect. A real jewel of a movie. Funny, touching, charming--all that good stuff. I was suspicious of the reviews mefmxmx (we've been misled before) but everything they said was true. The picture is lyrical and moving, and beautifully photographed, and speaks with wonderful affection to the magic of movies, and the magic of audiences' love for them. It sets up characters we care about, and though they are funny, it never makes fun of them, or their dreams. You get to the point where you actually believe in the central plot device—that the character has actually stepped off the screen. Mia Farrow plays the Woody Allen role and does it beautifully--a women who is the center of a lot of activity she doesn't quite understand. Jeff Daniels is great as the character Tom Baxter ("explorer, adventurer...") who steps off the screen, and as the actor who portrays him. Every role is perfectly cast, and the thing plays like a dream. It IS a dream, in fact, but we care about every bit of it. And it says more about the nature of illusion and reality than all of those "Nouveau Film'" films of the 60's. A gentle, understated triumph, with plenty of laughs to boot.