A beautifully adapted story illustrating the joy and pain of nostalgia (in all its forms) and how it impacts on the lives of the characters we are introduced to in the movie. But it's much more than that. The movie is a work of art. The performances are believable. The screenplay is spot on and the soundtrack is sublime. What a pleasure.

Well this was just a bit depressing wasn't it? I'm all for nostalgia, but this sure isn't what I think about when it comes to pulling up past memories. I try to reserve that for the warm, comforting moments that lend resonance to a person's life. Even something inspirational that might have occurred in the past that glows with fondness over time. So I'm not sure what the film maker was trying to do here. To be sure, there were some defining moments in the picture, as when the insurance adjuster (John Ortiz) stated to some clients - "Every story has details I've never heard before". And two very emotional scenes had exceptionally well written dialog; one was between Helen (Ellen Burstyn) and the memorabilia shop owner (Jon Hamm),the other occurred in the diner between crash survivor Kathleen (Mikey Madison) and the parents of Tallie (Annalise Basso). But gee, having the young teen die in a car accident seemed like an awful way to frame a story about nostalgic moments. More than anything, I felt bad for mother Donna (Catherine Keener) who initially nixed the road trip that ended in her daughter's death, and then relented when it became apparent that Tallie had no inclination to hang around with her Mom and Uncle Will. Now Donna would be left to contemplate her measure of blame in Tallie's death, even if irrational.

On top of all that, it was quite apparent that the scriptwriters did no homework at all regarding that Ted Williams signed baseball. The figure cited by Will the shop owner was in the range of eighty to a hundred thousand dollars, and his phone conversation with another collector hinted at a reasonable profit for him upon resale. But all it takes is a quick internet search to reveal that a similar ball sells in the neighborhood of three hundred fifty to four hundred fifty dollars. They're just not that rare, no matter how pristine the condition. Internet auction sites will suggest more, but usually in conjunction with other famous player autographs as well.

But the kicker for me personally in this story was the name of that insurance guy who opened the story with Ronnie Ashmore (Bruce Dern). His name was Daniel Coleman in the story, and the reason it's so poignant is because I knew a Daniel Coleman from my hometown who died years ago as a young adult from leukemia. That's a bit of nostalgia that depressed me even more as this picture unfolded.

If one thinks hard enough, there are some interesting topics thrown around in "Nostalgia". The trouble is, it takes slogging through and hour and 45 minutes of the most somber, melancholic film you've ever seen in order to actually get to those themes. It isn't worth the wait, at that.

For a basic plot summary, "Nostalgia" is told over a series of vignettes that loosely work together to create a theme. In one, an old woman (Ellen Burstyn) loses her home (and nearly everything in it) to a fire, and must come to terms with the importance of objects vs. memories. In another timeline, siblings Will (Jon Hamm) & Donna (Catherine Keener) must clean out their old childhood home, and then face their own personal tragedy.

Like I said, there are some interesting themes to chew on here, especially involving the concept of memories vs. physical items from loved ones. As we all grow older, it is interesting to consider what we will leave behind and what of that will be considered "important" to future generations.

A few good themes do not a good film make, however, and in pretty much all capacities "Nostalgia" is a complete mess. This is a film that really needed a stable environment all the way through, but instead it takes the opposite approach and skips from scene to scene and time to time with very little (if any) connective tissue to bind it all together. By the time the movie had ended, I was left wondering exactly what the first half had to do with the back half (besides a few concurring themes),and that's not good.

The acting is pretty good here (notably Hamm, who seems to be doing great work everywhere these days),but too often it only involves characters staring off into the distance or "reflecting", which doesn't come off all that well on the big screen.

Overall, I was mostly disappointed with "Nostalgia" for its inability to create any sort of substantial narrative (disjointed or otherwise) and being so somber all the way through. Whether intentional or not, this comes off as one of the most depressing movies you'll likely have watched in awhile.