Surprisingly pleasant little comedy about a nice guy losing his job, going to college, meeting new people and turning his life around. Basically an anti-Up In The Air, an earnest and feel-good antidote to Jason Reitman's mean sarcasm about Obama's America. Directed with an appropriate lightness of touch by Tom Hanks (recalling an equally sweet-but-serious approach he brought to his underrated directorial film debut, "That Thing You Do!"). While the film is advertised as a Tom Hanks/Julia Roberts rom-com, it's really much more than that, an almost epic, Capraesque portrait of contemporary America not giving up on its potential. It's really the supporting characters who make this movie, a truly original collection of various odd-balls, goof-balls and excentrics, including Star Trek's George Takei as a hilariously strange college professor, Cedric the Entertainer as a penny-pinching yard-sale guru, and especially Gugu Mbatha-Raw (photo) as an unbelievably cute yet wise college student and scooter club promoter.
