Another movie about Hollywood, but altogether softer and gentler in tone than last month's loud garish BABYLON.

The home-life and high-school scenes come with welcome echoes of a hundred other movies (notably, for me, AMERICAN GRAFFITI). Gabrielle LaBelle is totally convincing as the nerdy kid living a small life but dreaming big. Michelle Williams gives an Oscar-worthy performance as the neurotic Mitzi.

The film is a bit too long (two-and-a-half hours), but it's easy to take Sam and his family to your heart, especially when you remember that the real Sammy Fabelman is going to bring us ET and Close Encounters and the Indiana Jones movies a few years from where this story ends.