The only way to find the future is to face the past.
Jim Winters (Anthony LaPaglia) is a widower raising two teenage sons in a modest New Jersey home where the unspoken presence of the boys mother - killed in a car accident five years earlier - lingers with a quiet intensity. Gabe (Aaron Stanford), the oldest son, wants nothing more than to get out of the New Jersey suburbs and start a new life in Florida, even if it means leaving behind his girlfriend Stacey (Michelle Monaghan), his younger brother Pete (Mark Webber) and his father, who has tried to be strong for the boys, but still clearly misses his wife.
The emotional impasse is about to be bridged when Molly Ripkin (Allison Janney) moves into the quiet little community to house-sit for a friend. Looking for help with her unpacking, Molly borrows a trolley from Jim and when she returns it, she invites him and his boys to dinner as a gesture of thanks. With this subtle act of boldness, Molly ignites a spark in Jim that he'd long since let die. It's as though she empowers the man to let go of the emotional baggage that has long kept him from exploring intimacy and perhaps even life itself.
Special Agent Matti
*
M (Moderate coarse language, mature themes)
89 minutes (1:29 hours)
Film: 24 November 2005