She came to me

It can be a musician, an artist, a play or a film. It leaves you baffled. Liking it, is just the bonus.

The roles resemble a box of frogs. Everybody is hiding behind a curtain of creative or functional normal. Only Katrina, who in theory is the maddest of all, has the real sole and sanity. She is the most sincere.

The film jingles along - dysfunctional and baffling until that moment in the bar when Katrina interrupts sullen Steven. Immediately the chemistry kicks in. Once again Marisa Tomei edges a film.. never obvious. I couldn't issue a plethora of spoilers, as half the time I was grappling with the odd plot. Rebecca Miller directs, produces and writes a challenging and thought provoking parable ? This is a slow burner.

It's a romantic comedy-drama set in current times in Brooklyn, New York. It follows the experiences and interactions of two completely different families and a tugboat captain.

Steven Lauddem (Peter Dinklage) is an insecure composer facing a deadline for a new opera with no inspiration for a storyline. He's married to Patricia (Anne Hathaway), a therapist who's a clean freak and a closet devout Catholic. She has a bright 18-year-old son, Julian (Evan Ellison), from her first marriage. She had separated from Julian's father, but he had subsequently died. They have a dog named Levi.

Magdalena Szyskowski (Joanna Kulig) is a Polish who works as a cleaning lady. She has a 16-year-old daughter, Tereza (Harlow Jane), from her first husband. She is not married to the man she's living with, Trey Ruffa (Brian d'Arcy James), but he has adopted Tereza. Trey is a court stenographer and an extreme Civil War reenactor.

We learn early on that Julian and Tereza are boyfriend-girlfriend and that Magdalena is the new cleaning lady for Steven and Patricia. None of the adults are happy when they learn of Julian & Tereza's relationship, especially Trey. We also discover that Steven suddenly gets inspiration for his opera from an encounter with tugboat captain Katrina Trento (Marisa Tomei).

"She Came to Me" follows the characters' interactions through three love stories, two of which are surprising but are clearly telegraphed as the plot unfolds. All the primary actors are excellent, especially Dinklage, Tomei, and Ellison. The story is clever and fun.

In truth maybe it's more like an eight not a ten, but I have to compensate for the crime of it being rated only a six. It deserves so much more than that!

I love this movie because the characters are strange, and yes okay maybe exaggerated as movies tend to be, but actually authentic at the heart of it. Each of them are laugh out loud absurd, but also somehow remind me of someone I know in various ways. This movie captures how sweet it is to be young and in love. It captures how it feels to think that part of your life is over, and be wrong. And it does it in such a strange and original way. I'm sorry I just love it, start to finish.

Thank heavens I didn't let the 6.0 rating deter me from going ahead to see this. I went in almost blind cos I didn't focus much on the plot but I saw the trailer and i was determined to see it regardless of what the critics say and boy was that a spot on decision.

Everything about it works for me and I really don't like romantic movies but it wasn't even that. It had this subtleness about it with the occasional humor that actually made me laugh once or twice but smiled a lot.

The cast was perfect. I almost feel like a different cast might not have done justice to what the script was trying to portray.

Director/screenwriter Rebecca Miller has fashioned quite a quirky relationship roundelay in this 2023 dramedy as she focuses on a dumbfounding love triangle saved from complete absurdity by the dexterity of the three leads. The plot is convoluted. Stephen Lauddem is a famous composer with writer's block who sleeps with Katrina, a shopworn tugboat captain with a sex addiction, and then writes a celebrated opera about their fast affair. Stephen is married to Patricia, a beautiful Manhattan therapist with OCD and a strange obsession with nuns. There's a parallel story of Patricia's son who is in love with the underaged daughter of the family maid whose husband is hellbent on breaking up the relationship. All the story strands come together but don't emotionally resonate nearly as much as they should. Miller seems more preoccupied with the characters' eccentricities. The star performances compensate. Peter Dinklage plays Stephen with jaundiced charm, while Anne Hathaway shows off a welcome edginess to Patricia. Marisa Tomei conveys a convincing lived-in approach to Katrina that helps ground the movie's somewhat flighty tone.