Certainly one of the most talked-about
features at the 2005 TriBeCa Film Festival,
THE GREAT NEW WONDERFUL is populated
by people you know: New Yorkers you see
on the elevator, in the supermarket, at the
gym. Deeply affecting without a trace of
sentimentality, director Danny Leiner paints
five portraits of life in this city a year after 9/11.
Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Emme is a brilliant,
ultra-competitive confectioner catering to the
wealthy. Olympia Dukakis’ Judy finds herself
in a tired marriage and longing to make a
meaningful connection. Jim Gaffigan plays an
office worker whose company-sponsored counselor
(Tony Shalhoub) also becomes his tormenter. Nasseeruddin Shah and Sharat Saxena play a diplomat’s security detail, but one of them is wound too tight. And Tom McCarthy and Judy Greer play a young couple run ragged by an impossible child and confronted by a school principal (Stephen Colbert). In a way, THE GREAT NEW WONDERFUL is a testament to our resilience. But thanks to a number of extraordinary performances, the film also exposes the flip side of resilience: the shared emotions that lie just beneath the surface of our seemingly secure lives as we go about our daily business.