Mind the Gap

Warm-hearted but clear-eyed indie effort richly repays audience patience during deliberately paced and provocatively allusive early scenes with a cumulative emotional impact that is immensely satisfying.

Everyone somehow ends up in Manhattan for a contrived and predictable conclusion. In his last film role, the late Alan King is reduced to a stereotype of a cantankerous Jewish senior.

Mr. Schaeffer takes his time cryptically setting up his characters' situations in the film. When they finally start moving toward one another and revealing their secrets, the revelations flow like diet soda.

You can see what's coming five minutes into the movie, but capable acting lends it a certain superficial charm.

Formulaic but surprisingly affecting drama.

Eric Schaeffer's rip-off -- er, homage -- to "Magnolia," is a marginally better movie than his previous self-absorbed atrocities like "My Life's in Turnaround" and "Wirey Spindell."

In the crass, endless Mind the Gap, Schaeffer dares to ape "Magnolia," telling five barely connected stories with all the grace of a juggler tossing open bottles of Drano.