User reviews

Greetings again from the darkness. The source material is the 1943 novel "The Human Comedy" from Pulitzer Prize winning writer William Saroyan; and it's the directorial debut of Meg Ryan, the one-time 'America's Sweetheart' who reunites with her Sleepless in Seattle co-star Tom Hanks (in a ghostly cameo). Due to these juicy ingredients, we can be excused if our expectations are a bit high.

As a viewer, it's easy to relate to the emotions of young Homer McCauley (Alex Neustaedter) as his messenger job expedites the disillusionment that often accompanies adulthood. While Homer becomes more disenchanted the more he learns, we feel let down with each successive sequence. The adapted screenplay from Eric Jendresen never picks a direction, and instead teases us with numerous pieces from the novel with little follow through on any.

Homer's dad (a very brief Tom Hanks apparition) has recently passed, and with his older brother Marcus (Jack Quaid, son of Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid) off at war, Homer takes it upon himself to secure a job to help support his saintly and melancholy mother (Meg Ryan), his older sister Bess (Christine Nelson) and his little brother Ulysses (an energetic Spencer Howell). He pledges to be the best bicycle messenger ever when hired at the local telegraph company run by Tom Spangler (Hamish Linklater) and old-timer (grumpy and frequently inebriated) Willie (Sam Shepard).

Being that it's war time, some of the telegraphs Homer must deliver are the worst possible news for the parents on the receiving end. As the film progresses, we see the light slowly go out of Homer's once bright eyes. The accelerated coming-of-age aspect is at its best when his father-figure Willie brusquely tells him "You are 14 years old and you're a man! I don't know who made you that way." It's the most poignant moment of the film and the closest we get to a real theme.

The letters Homer receives from older brother Marcus contribute to his understanding of the world and the reading of the letters serves the purpose of story narration. The film is nostalgic and idealistic, but so unfocused that we are never able to fully connect with any of the characters. We are caught off guard when Homer proclaims his mother as the nicest person ever, although she has offered even less guidance than Forrest Gump's mom. Ithaca, Ulysses, and Homer … we can't miss the mythology ties, as well as the importance of home, but it always feels like something is missing.

In 1943, six time Oscar nominee Clarence Brown made a movie based on this same novel, and the cast included Mickey Rooney, Frank Morgan, Donna Reid and Van Johnson. In this new version, John Mellencamp provides the musical score, and Ms. Ryan has stated that the novel helped her work through a difficult time in her personal life. She's likely to get more opportunities to direct; her first outing is easy enough to watch, but just as easy to forget.

"Okay, the faster you deliver messages, the more you can deliver. The faster you pick up outgoing messages, the more we can send. The more we can send, the better our chances of beating western union and staying alive. We're postal telegraph. We get there swiftly. We're polite to everyone. We take off our hats in elevators and above all things, we never lose a telegram."

"Wow!" I thought for a minute. A drama with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks demonstrating their skills once more. Is it a sequel to the masterful romantic comedy "You've got mail"? Well, it's about sending messages for sure. But Tom Hanks won't send a lot of messages anymore. Or he's sending them from the afterlife. It's the era before the internet even existed. These were the happy days without spam or ransom-ware. But to deliver the telegram within an acceptable time frame, the telegraph services needed young boys who could ride a bike swiftly enough. And since "Ithaca" is situated during the 2nd World War, with lots of American boys fighting on the European continent, it's no surprise most of the messages brought no good news.

And that's something Homer Macauley (Alex Neustaedter) is facing. He's betting his life on being the fastest courier on bike ever. Despite the fact that he's racing back and forth like a kind of Cavendish the whole movie, the film on its own is rather slow. Biggest surprise was the rather limited contribution by Tom Hanks. Was he doing Meg Ryan (debuting here as a director) a favor? Or was it just to stir up the former movie chemistry? In contrast, the film was hugely predictable. I could guess early on in the film which fate Homer was quickly sprinting towards. I know it wasn't the intention to create a mysterious puzzle. But I was hoping for a little surprise. Ultimately, it's once again about fear and hope. Left behind families waiting for some news from their sons who are sent to war. And this combined with the story about a boy, who's confronted with the less pleasant events in life, while delivering these messages.

Because of the short playing time, Meg Ryan failed to unravel the fragile personality of Homer in an orderly manner. His leap to adulthood is fairly abruptly after the death of his father and the departure of his older brother. A brother who writes terribly long letters while on his way to the front, in such a prosaic writing style that it seems as if he wants to win a Pulitzer prize. The occasional reading of excerpts from these letters probably was meant to bring drama into the film. Eventually, I thought it was quite disturbing. A short playing time with a variety of story lines results in unfinished and "fast dealt with" pieces. The loss of a father figure, the responsibility as the eldest son, dutifully performing a job as a courier, the disastrous reports, war scenes, the drama of an old telegraph operator and a mother who occasionally experiences "Sixth Sense" situations. And then there are a few minor (but briefly quoted) secondary plots. It's all a bit too much.

The acting isn't really bad. But it seems like everyone is groping in the dark about his character. Especially Homer's boss Tom Spangler (Hamish Linklater) is such a blurred figure. We can be brief about Ryan and Hanks. As brief as their actual playing time. It's negligible. I only enjoyed the performances of Alex Neustaedter (obvious of course), Sam "Midnight Special" Shepard and the cute Ulysses (Spencer Howell) whose cuddle factor is very high. Especially Shepard makes a momentary impression. A brilliant and intriguing character. Eventually this coming of age story during the war makes a fairly comatose impression. It isn't really vivid.

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If Erik Jendresen, who wrote the screenplay and Meg Ryan, who directed and portrayed Mrs. Macauley, sees this story as darkly as they have, I can but feel sorry for both.

Outside of the name of the town as well as the names of the characters, this film bears no resemblance to the well rounded and splendid version of "The Human Comedy" released in 1943. In fact, characters of some import are missing in this film! If anything, I consider it the darkest side of that story which relates more to the mindset and attitudes of today rather than those of 1942-43.

The threads that bound the original story together are absent. There are no threads that bind in this film...not in the story or the characters. Everything seems far too superficially developed, insights discarded, small town togetherness, familial feelings and thoughts are simply not present. Outside of Sam Shepard, who portrayed Willie Grogan, the casting is dead wrong and for the studio to hawk this as a Meg Ryan-Tom Hanks film is no less than cheeky. In my opinion, they sought to make a buck using their names.

I cannot recommend this film to anyone for any reason. For me, it has no saving grace. That Meg Ryan undertook its direction and "bought" the screenplay is sheer folly. I truly do not believe that Ms. Ryan or Erik Jendresen understood the people, characters or period in which this film takes place. Being familiar with the music of the era, I did not hear one piece that touched on it.

"I don't know what's ahead, but whatever it is I am humbly ready for it." Homer Macauley (Neustaedter) has just watched his brother go off to fight in WWII and wants to do anything he can to help. He decides the best way for him to help his family is to get a job. He decides to become a bicycle telegraph messenger, and sets out to be the best and fastest one anyone has ever seen. Soon after he begins he is given a message that changes everything, and his job becomes more important than he ever imagined. This is a movie that I am very torn about. On one hand the movie has tremendous heart and leaves you hoping the movie won't end the way you expect it to. The acting is great and this is a very good character study of how the war affected the relatives stateside. On the other hand, you have a prediction on how the movie will end and you are just waiting for it to come to fruition. The fact that you think this way distracts you from the movie and the emotion of every other aspect seems to be lost and glossed over. I didn't think the movie was that bad and it is worth seeing, but about a year ago a movie called Little Boy came out and that was far better than this one. Overall, a good movie that is worth seeing, but you spend the entire time waiting for one thing to happen and it ultimately distracts you from the rest of the movie. I give this a B-.

maybe the story is good, but the way it was presented made it a boring flick. some actors are delivering a good performance, the majority aren't.

better go look at grass growing because you get the exact feeling from that as from this movie. it looks like they filmed at rehearsal and didn't bother to shoot it again.

there wasn't much attention put into this movie overall and it shows, from the camera shots to the actors delivering the lines. sound is awful, but this is a thing seen in almost all movies. are they shooting with phones? wth...

Meg isn't yet ready to direct movies, plain and simple.

After World War II, William Saroyan gambled away all his money but he preferred to resort to hack work rather than sell movie rights to any of his novels. Not after his disappointment with the original movie of The Human Comedy. Part of it was vanity. He'd wanted to direct the movie, and MGM wouldn't let him. But it's also true that Hollywood has its own point of view and it doesn't always match Saroyan's.

In Ithaca, which is a remake of the Human Comedy (now that Saroyan is dead), the main story and characters are preserved, but to me it doesn't look like Saroyan. In the book's classic illustrations by Don Freeman, Mrs. Macauley is older-looking and certainly not an attractive but obvious plastic-surgery veteran like Meg Ryan. Grogan is older-looking too. The character brought most successfully to the screen is Ulysses, although he shouldn't be losing his baby teeth if, as the dialog says, he's four. He's remarkable.

The visuals are, to my taste, too expressionistic. The telegraph office is huge, the roads are wide, and things are too big in general except where Marcus the faraway soldier is involved. All the scenes with Marcus are crowded. That does emphasize the contrast between Ithaca and where Marcus is, but Marcus is not remote enough. Because there are continual voice-overs from his letters, I think the audience doesn't appreciate his absence as a factor. Even the dead father isn't completely absent, and although he adds a sorrowful note, this unkillable family togetherness diminishes the philosophical message that our human condition is one of loneliness and we must actively reach out.

On the one hand, I expected a dustier, less prosperous-looking Ithaca. On the other hand, I was surprised that the choice of music verged on primitivity. More Appalachian than Californian.

I think that a more realistic movie might have worked better, because of the need to carry some dialogue that can, if not handled right, sound unrealistically divorced from what everyday people really say. People declaiming unrealistic-sounding dialogue amidst unrealistic-looking scenery may be fine for the stage but it's difficult to sell on the screen.

Still, the movie tries to be respectful of the original. It even includes some salutes to matters that only readers of the book will fully appreciate-- such a mention of unripe apples, referencing a whole episode involving unripe apricots in the book. I hope that since Saroyan is no longer alive to object, Hollywood will continue to mine his canon.

Nothing happens - Literally nothing happens!

A waste of anyone's life watching it. Watching paint dry would be a much better use of time. Literally nothing happens!

Anything Hanks works on behind the scenes is dross.

I think it's outrageous Ryan and Hanks are promoted as being in this. They say 5 words between them - pathetic

5/10

'There will always be pain in this world, Homer. And a good man will seek to take the pain out of things.' William Saroyan's 1943 novel THE HUMAN COMEDY, a quiet, gentle statement of finding meaning in becoming a man, has been lovingly and subtly transformed into a film by Erik Jendresen and directed with straightforward simplicity by Meg Ryan. Some viewers fine this film slow and lifeless, but the true beauty of this little gem is that the actors, director, cinematographer and production crew allow it to let the tine slice of Americana speak for itself.

The year is 1942 and the film opens with black and white broadcasts by President Roosevelt about the tragedy of Pearl Harbor. We meet the Macauley family. Fourteen- year-old Homer Macauley (Alex Neustaedter) is determined to be the best and fastest bicycle telegraph messenger anyone has ever seen. His older brother Marcus (Jack Quaid) has gone to war, leaving Homer to look after his widowed mother (Meg Ryan – his father appears as Tom Hanks), his older sister Bess (Christine Nelson) and his 4-year-old brother, Ulysses (Spencer Howell). And so it is that as spring turns to summer, 1942, Homer Macauley delivers messages of love, hope, pain... and death... to the good people of Ithaca. His telegraph office is run buy the elderly Grogan (Sam Shepard) and Tom Spangler (Hamish Linklater) who are supportive of their underage worker, offering sage advice and love to a frightened lad. Homer will grapple with one message that will change him forever. ITHACA is a coming-of-age story about the exuberance of youth, the abruptness of change, the sweetness of life, the sting of death, and the sheer goodness that lives in each and every one of us.

Put away your need for high action films and comic book heroes and CGI effects and re- visit a time in America when small towns reflected the strengths of youngsters and families affect by World War II. The film is deeply moving.

Did not really understand the movie or plot. Felt like the characters never really developed, and I feel like they wasted having Tom hanks in the movie! Such great potential to be a good movie but falls really short.

It shows the innocence of a younger son, an older son grown up, and a middle son Homer becoming aware of what real life is as he delivers telegrams to the mothers of sons who will not be coming back home from the war alive. Homer grows up as he sees the pain of life.

An old man named Will Grogan receives and types the telegrams. Mr. Grogan drinks to help deal with his pain of sending this information to families in the community.

The movie shows us how war may effect us. It makes you realize the front line of war can be just as difficult at home as they try to continue with life.

Tom Hanks is a good actor. Meg Ryan is a good actress. They've had chemistry in the past. It ain't here for this movie.

First off, this is not a Tom Hanks movie. He has top billing, but he is on screen for maybe two minutes. Second, this was Meg Ryan's directorial debut. It's a dog, and I don't have high expectations for her continued career as a director.

The story is completely disjointed and really doesn't have any kind of plot to speak of, other than a teenager being all angsty.

Save your money, folks. Don't rent this movie and don't waste 90 minutes of your life watching it.

...which successfully evoked a dark time in world history, and portrayed small-town people's response to the resulting deaths of WWII. The characters were engaging and the dialogue seemed genuine.

Some elements of this movie are good...the story is good, the set production and "feel" is good...but the presence of very odd flat performances by Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks-in minor roles-was distracting and I never got past it. Meg Ryan-with her trout pout silicone lips, salon hair, and botox forehead believable as a 1940's small town housewife? Nope! The rest of the movie then lost credibility. Too bad Meg Ryan didnt just find 2 solid people for the roles as the parents... then maybe the movie would have been watchable.

The film is short and is like a slice of life and death. Probably made for TV. It is not really a war movie but rather an anti-war movie. What is a war use? The film was in english only but has a french feel all over.

I would caution the reader to not take too much stock in the less- than-stellar, Monday morning director, critical reviews of this film. Tom Hanks' position in the billing should be the very last, if even noted. His face time in this movie is probably less than 2 minutes total and, for all intents and purposes, Meg Ryan's character is minor. Any decent character actress could have played her role without any impact on the motion picture as a whole. This is not "Sleepless In Seattle" nor is it a spin-off of any other Meg Ryan or Tom Hanks movie. These two "box office draws" are in this motion picture because as producer (Hanks) and director (Ryan) they chose to be; perhaps for the purpose of giving this film initial gravitas or simply because they wanted to be participants in the telling of a good story and a good story this is.

This is a time-period piece conceived by William Saroyan in 1942 and published as the novel, "The Human Comedy" in 1943. Everything about this film is 1942 perhaps with the exception of the lack of recognizable, vintage 1940's music. This is a film depicting the morals and values of small town America at the beginning of the Second World War, not the values, morals, or expectations of those of us trapped so much in the present that we cannot recognize or even acknowledge the simple and far more innocent times portrayed in this film. Consequently, the gratuitous profanity so common in pictures today is refreshingly absent. This was a time when to be able to kiss a cute girl on her cheek was considered something very special to a young man heading off to war. It was a time when a little boy could get lost in town and the only real threat was that he might miss dinner. People did not lock their doors. A telegraph messenger, even though a stranger, was invited into one's home. If a person was involved in a nefarious or unseemly behavior they did their best to hide it. It was a time when a typical 14 year-old boy, like Homer Macauley (Alex Neustaedter), having experienced the Great Depression first hand, was already a responsible individual.

This was the world in which Homer rode his bicycle, delivering telegrams, picking up night letters, and doing everything he could to see that the Postal Telegraph Company could effectively compete with Western Union; all the while being the one remaining "man of the house" in the wake of his father's untimely death and his older brother's departure for service overseas. Ithaca and the nation were slowly adjusting to war as the patriotic zeal following Pearl Harbor gave way to the more sobering realities of life during wartime. The presence of a telegraph messenger at the front door was not yet perceived as a sign of bad news but those in the telegraph business, transmitting, decoding, and delivering the messages, were becoming keenly aware of the war's growing, painful impact on families. In this context, with the war's presence being increasingly felt and experienced, the small day-to-day aspects of community were the constants, giving the character of Homer's 4-year old brother, Ulysses (Spencer Howell), the unique ability to provide an endearing presence of those things that are ultimately important and reminding us that, even when things appear to be going so very badly, life is good and must go on.

Screenwriter Erik Jendresen says in his synopsis of the story line, "this is a coming-of-age story." In my view it is far more than that if, in watching the film, one will allow being transported to Ithaca, NY in 1942 and to embrace for 90 minutes or so, the values of the people living through this story at that time.

I wanted to enjoy this film. The setting was beautiful, but the contrast between the joyful exuberance of youth and bracing reality of adulthood was stark. I believe this was what the director was working to achieve. It was one of those films in which it feels just too real, including the surreal moments. That being the case, watching was painful, and I don't feel afterward that there were sufficient merits to outweigh that pain.

It is a film deserving to be loved. This is the main certitude about it. It deserve be loved for the beautiful portrait of mister Grogan proposed by Sam Shepart. For lovely young Spencer Howell. For the hard ( and good ) work of Alex Neustaedter. And, obvious, for Meg Ryan . Yes, it is not the most convincing movie about war. No doubts, it is a sketch only. The mother, performed by Meg Ryan remains a silhouette, unfortunately. But, honest to be, it represents more, more than a good try. It is a film to remind small, fundamental things defining us. From the connections between siblings to the maturity of a 14 years old age boy. From friendship to the telegrams, death, war and change of everything just in a minute. Its sins - many, maybe. Its basic virtue - an admirable delicacy for I am profound grateful to Meg Ryan.