the production quality and cast and premise and authentic new england ( waterbury and ct. ) locale and lush john williams score should have result in a 3 4 star collector item . unfortunately and all we get be a passable 2 star decent flick and mostly memorable for what it try to do . bring an art house style film mainstream . the small town locale and story of ordinary people be a genre to itself and and if well do and will satisfy most grownup . jane fonda be unable to hide her braininess enough to make her character believable . i wonder why she wasn not do a post doctorate at yale instead of work in a dead end factory job in waterbury . robert diniro character be just a bit too contrive . an illiterate and nice guy loser who turn out to actually be and with a little help from jane character and a 1990 version of henry ford or thomas edison . this genre have be more successfully handle by nobody fool in the mid 90 and this year ( 2003 ) about schmidt . i wish that the main stream studio would try more stuff for post adolescent and reserve a couple of screen at the multi cinema complex for those effort . i will give it an a for effort .