Aurora Borealis

The real surprise here is Lewis, who seems to have finally hit on a role that balances her usual flakiness with smarts and an offbeat poignancy, and she delivers the strongest work of her adult career.

Alternately breezy and profound, pic hits enough emotional chords to connect with audiences, which will be charmed by a newly mature Joshua Jackson, a deeply aged Donald Sutherland and a friskily romantic Juliette Lewis.

The latest "Dawson's Creek" alumnus to break out of his WB bonds, Joshua Jackson proves himself all grown up in this sweetly scrappy indie.

Although it is overloaded with backstory and often tries too hard, Aurora Borealis finds a reasonable balance between romance and family drama.

The script offers neither character revelations nor plot twists. It unfolds by the numbers, like the product of an amateur screenwriter's salon. Its second-hand ideas originate in movies ranging from 1960's "The Apartment" to 1997's "The Ice Storm."

Most successful in capturing the emotional elements of its story, the film relies on its excellent cast to balance out sketchily drawn characters and the unfortunate obviousness of its plot.

The fixation of independent movies on the arrested development of bourgeois dullards may have less to do with the relevance of the topic than the class of people who get to make movies. Whatever the case, James Burke directs from a screenplay by Brent Boyd.