Year Released: 2012
Directed by: Lawrence Kasdan
Starring: Diane Keaton, Kevin Kline
(PG-13, 103 min.)

This is the first of 4 mini reviews of movies I had somehow passed up during the summer, looking too hard for a thrill factor. Well, an overseas flight gave me the time and opportunity to view these films that reminded of the sweetness we used to see on a regular basis in our cinemas.

Think The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, but this time it isn’t a zany Indian with oodles of charm and unfocused ambition who performs the magic on the assortment of guests at his run down establishment. The visionary here is Carmen (Ayelet Zurer) the beautiful gypsy caretaker of the Rocky Mountain retreat owned by Beth (Diane Keaton) and Joseph (Kevin Kline), her self-absorbed surgeon husband.

The catastrophe here, or what Alfred Hitchcock might call the McGuffin, is a lost dog, the one Beth has rescued one year earlier along side the highway. Joseph loses the aptly named Freeway to the scent of a deer, more absorbed in a phone call with a colleague than minding the dog that has almost replaced him in Beth’s heart. With the aid of Carmen, who admits to having a sort of second sight, Beth, Joseph, and a small band of cohorts traipse over hill and dale according to her latest vision of the dog, who, she assures everyone, is still very much alive.

Carmen’s so called mystic visions may or may not be red herrings, but her unerring instincts about the humans she sends in paired outings are right on. Whether or not they find the elusive Freeway, the semi-dysfunctional troops looking for him somehow find themselves.

What with getting lost on mountain slopes and an encounter with a gun-toting, axe-wielding dog hoarder, one could work up a pretty good appetite for breakfast the next day. It looks like some Rocky Mountain Toast is called for.

–Kathy Borich