“Once a messenger, always a messenger.”
This is what 14-year-old Homer Macauley is told on his first day working as a telegraph messenger in Meg Ryan’s directorial debut, “Ithaca.” But as the World War II drama unfolds, Macauley realizes becoming a messenger may mean having to leave his childhood behind.
“Ithaca” — based on William Saroyan’s “The Human Comedy” — is by all means charming. A film Ryan herself describes as “wholesome,” the slow-paced coming-of-age story is filled with both moments of laughter and heartache common to the preteen experience.
In addition to the visually striking scenery filmed in Petersburg, Va., another strong point of the film is its unrelenting theme of the familial small-town community — an underrepresented theme in the age of action-blockbusters. The production of the film itself involved Ryan’s family — her son, Jack Quaid, plays the role as Homer’s older brother, ex-boyfriend John Mellencamp wrote the original score for the film and longtime co-star Tom Hanks (“Sleepless in Seattle,” “You’ve Got Mail”) makes a cameo.
Charm can only take a movie so far. There are a few too many subplots in the film to leave the audience completely satisfied and connected with the characters, and Ryan misses a few golden opportunities to surprise the audience with an original ending.
To her credit, Ryan had quite a lot on her plate for her first film: the movie was shot in a brief 23 days, the majority of the actors had never been in a film before and Ryan herself stepped in to play Homer’s mother on top of directing — an situation she called a “schitzy experience.”
“Ithaca” may be the beginning of a long career for many of the film’s talented and currently unknown young actors. In particular, Homer’s 5-year-old brother, Ulysses (Spencer Howell) could easily rival “Jerry Maguire” star Jonathan Lipnicki for cutest child actor of all time. Even Ryan wasn’t immune to the adorable toddler, admitting during the discussion that “he was my screensaver for a while.”
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