Lili Taylor, much in her element, plays one of Anne Tyler's lonely, loopy protagonists, an amusement-park bunny in North Carolina, living at home with her shortwave-hobbyist father ("There's too much Spanish in the world") and nurturing a fixation on a garage-band rocker called Drumstrings Casey. (On impulse, she carves his last name in her forehead, but backwards in front of a mirror: an excellent job of makeup at all stages of freshness and fadedness.) The story unfolds slowly, takes some unexpected turns as well as some expected ones, and gradually engulfs us in an individual destiny. The soundtrack is overloaded with pop tunes, albeit some well-chosen ones, including Nanci Griffith's rendition of Stephen Foster's "Hard Times" behind the opening credits, and the Girl Rock classic, "Tell Him," for the wedding day. With Guy Pearce, Irma P. Hall, John Hawkes, Shawnee Smith, Sara Rue, Tom Bower; written and directed by Toni Kalem. (2004) — Duncan Shepherd
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