A leading man (Jeff Daniels) steps down off the movie screen to bring a touch of romance to the life of Mia Farrow’s downtrodden waitress. Set in Depression-era America, this astonishing exercise in Magic Realism is both an arresting spin on romantic comedy conventions and a light, lovely meditation on the cost of surrendering our lives to commercialized fantasy. “Rare currents of wit and nostalgia,” TIME’s reviewer wrote. But in retrospect, it is much more than that.
