Detective Dormer (Al Pacino) can’t sleep. He and his partner, Hap Eckhart (Martin Donovan), are LA cops on special assignment to investigate the brutal murder of a teen-age girl in tiny Nightmute Alaska. Dormer may have been brought in for his expertise – eager young Nightmute detective Ellie Burr (Hilary Swank) tells him that she did a case study on one of the crimes he solved when she was in school. But Dormer and Eckhart may have been sent to Alaska to keep them out of the way of an Internal Affairs investigation. They are investigators and subjects of investigation at the same time.

This is just the first of many dualities and counterpoints in a complex, thoughtful thriller directed by Christopher Nolan, who gave us last year’s breakthrough hit about an amnesiac searching for his wife’s killer, Memento. Like that movie, “Insomnia” has an impaired main character. We cannot always trust what we see through his eyes.

Neither can he. Shortly after arriving in Nightmute, he asks to be taken to the local high school so that he can interview the dead girl’s boyfriend. The local detectives glance at each other and explain that it is 10 o’clock. Dormer looks out the window and says, “So what?” But it is 10 PM in a time of year when it is light all night long. Images of light and darkness haunt Dormer as he tries to escape the light so he can get some sleep and as he is forced to confront a darkness within himself that draws him both to the killers and to their eradication. It turns out that he and the killer will have a connection that, like the midnight sun, will keep him awake.

Nolan uses everything — the huge frozen vistas, the disorientation of perpetual sunlight, the fog that surrounds their first glimpse of the killer, the names (Dormer is “to sleep” in French, Ellie Burr is a detective whose dedication is a constant irritant). Dormer’s lack of sleep both deconstructs and constructs him. He enters a surreal state in which he is both more and less able to rely on his judgment.

Pacino, Swank, Donovan, and Maura Tierney as a sympathetic hotel proprietor are all first-rate. The movie’s weakest point is Robin Williams in the under-written role of the killer.

Parents should know that the movie has brief but grisly violence, a nude corpse, some creepy sound effects, and some very strong language. There are tense scenes and characters are shot and killed. Characters drink and smoke.

Families who see this movie should talk about the moral compromises Dormer makes and the ways in which people have to balance the ends and the means. What will Ellie do next? Why? Why is the town named “Nightmute?” What do you think about the girl who was killed?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy No Way to Treat a Lady, Strangers on a Train and Memento.

Six lonely, insecure single people sign up for a beginning Italian class that changes their lives in this small, endearing Danish movie that feels as much like a documentary as like a traditional romantic comedy.

That is because it was made under the auspices of a group of film-makers who have made a commitment to making movies as simply as possible.

The Dogme 95 film-makers have pledged to obey some severe restrictions as a part of their commitment to making movies with more freshness, intimacy, and authenticity than the big-studio productions that they believe interfere with story-telling. They film in real locations, their only props those that are already present. They use minimal additional lighting and do not re-record dialogue. There is no musical score. The best known Dogme 95 films are Lars van Trier’s “Breaking the Waves” and “Dancer in the Dark.” “Italian for Beginners” is the first Dogme 95 romance and the first directed by a woman. One of the Dogme 95 rules is that the movie must not have a director’s credit. But it was directed by its screenwriter, Lone Scherfig.

The movie begins as Andreas (Anders W. Berthelsen), a young, newly ordained minister, is shown around the church he will be taking over temporarily. The current minister has been suspended (later we will find out why), and Andreas is a temporary fill-in. He moves into a hotel managed by Jorgen (Peter Gantzler), a shy man who has two big problems. He has not been able to have sex for four years, and he has been told to fire his best friend, Finn (Lars Kaalund), a handsome man who loves the sports restaurant he manages but cannot manage to be nice to any of the customers.

All three of them end up in the Italian class, along with a beautiful hairdresser and a clumsy bakery shop cashier. The two women, who are both caring for sick, demanding, parents, find out that they have even more in common. And Jorgen learns enough Italian to ask the pretty Italian cook who works with Finn if she would like to come to the class — even though she already speaks Italian. And then, like Shakespearean lovers running off to the woods, they leave Denmark to go to Venice, that most romantic of cities, to sort it all out.

This is the kind of cute concept that Hollywood studios churn out regularly (see Liza Minnelli’s “Stepping Out” for a pretty good example). But Schefberg has the courage to make the story messily un- formulaic. She trusts the audience enough to give us complicated characters coping with great loss and sadness. And here, in Dogme 95’s stripped-down style, the camera puts us so close to the action that we feel we are watching a real story unfold. There are moments of great intimacy, as when the hairdresser allows her hand to caress the side of Finn’s head as she washes his hair, and when Jorgen squats next to the swimming pool to ask advice about his problems with women as Andreas swims laps. And there are moments of great sweetness, as when the Italian cook steps away to consider a marriage proposal, to come racing back with her answer.

Parents should know that the movie is romantic and often comic, but characters cope with some very serious problems, including suicide, mercy killing, fetal alcohol syndrome, impotence, the death of parents, and the consequences of divorce for the adult children.

Scherfig said in an interview that there are no villains in her story, and that one difference between her story and most movies is that most movies made the audience want to be like the characters, while in her movie the characters want to be like the audience. Do you think that is true? What is the significance of Karen’s failed attempts to cut Finn’s hair, and his finally getting it done by someone else? What do we know about Andreas’s late wife that makes us think his new romance will work? Why does it take a trip to Venice to allow the characters to finally take a chance? What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of the Dogme 95 style? What kind of stories is it best for, and what kind would it do badly?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy “Brassed Off” and “The Full Monty.”

I’d like to add to the list of things I never want to see in another movie, right after lip-synching to Motown songs shown as a bonding experience and sign of inner hipness, anyone ever saying to anyone, “I got more from you than you ever will from me.”

I don’t mind too much when people feel that way in movies, but when they have to say it, it is a pretty good sign that the film-makers are so uncertain that the formula is working that they just want to make sure we get the picture by spelling it out for us. In movies like this, that’s a clear signal that we’re in the land of “minority or disabled people as magical healers,” and that is never a healthy place to be for too long.

But great actors love great challenges (just look at how many Oscar winners played people with disabilities), so we find ourselves with many opportunities to go there. Sean Penn is a fine actor with a first-rate performance here as Sam Dawson, a retarded man who wipes the tables at Starbucks and wants to fight for custody of his daughter. Fellow star Michelle Pfeiffer has less to work with than she did as a similar character in “One Fine Day,” but manages a good fake smile and a nice crying scene. In smaller parts, Diane Wiest, Richard Schiff, Mary Steenburgen, and Laura Dern are all very fine as well, and the soundtrack of Beatles songs recorded by some of today’s best artists, is a genuine treat. The real miracle of the movie, though, is tiny Dakota Fanning as Sam’s daughter Lucy Diamond Dawson (named for the Beatles song). She gives a performance of such sincerity, subtlety, and delicacy that she almost carries the entire movie herself.

Although Lucy’s mother, a homeless woman, leaves right after Lucy is born, Sam does just fine at first, with help from an agoraphobic neighbor (Wiest) who explains when Lucy is a newborn that Sam should put on Nickelodeon and feed her when “Hogan’s Heroes” is on and then again at “I Dream of Jeannie.” Sam also gets some help from an entourage of retarded pals, and all goes along pretty well until Lucy, at age seven, begins to surpass Sam intellectually.

Then the big, bad wolf, in the form of Family Protective Services (Loretta Devine and West Wing’s Richard Schiff) try to take her away. Sam picks lawyer Rita Harrison (Michelle Pfeiffer) out of the phone book because her name is Beatle-ish. Rita turns out to be a driven perfectionist who gets her cardio in by racing up the 26 flights to her office screaming into her cell phone but snarfs down marshmallows and jelly beans when she feels vulnerable. At first she turns Sam down, but later, shamed into taking on a pro bono case, she agrees to represent him. And sure enough, she learns from Sam to take time to smell the roses and play with her own son. Even would-be adoptive mother Laura Dern, in what amounts to almost a tribute to Sam’s favorite movie, “Kramer vs. Kramer,” shows up in the middle of the night to cry about what a loving father he is.

If only they had trusted the material and the audience a little more, this would not feel so manipulative and dishonest. But by making anyone who thinks that maybe a child needs more than a retarded parent can provide look like a monster, they turn the characters into cardboard. The glowing last scene, with Sam performng in a role that is clearly beyond what he has been shown to be capable of, is just phoney. Yeah, I cried, but I was annoyed about it.

Parents should know that this movie has the requisite one f-word, now standard in PG-13 movies, and some other mild language. There is a stong reference to adultery. Lucy’s mother is a homeless woman who deserts her after she is born. Some children (and adults) will find the custody conflicts and discussion of parenting issues upsetting.

Families who see this movie should talk about what Sam should do to give Lucy everything she needs. What problems are they likely to have as she gets older? What did Rita learn from Sam, and why was it only Sam who could teach it to her? A number of the people in the movie struggle with parenting issues — there has never been a court proceeding in history that permitted such discussion of the family lives of all the participants and witnesses. How do you see those struggles in the families around you?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy Kramer vs. Kramer and Rain Man. They should also read the wonderful Expecting Adam by Martha Beck.

Plot: As a baby, as a five year old, as a school girl, and as a young woman, Joan Webster (Wendy Hiller) always knows exactly what she wants. And whether it is “real silk stockings” instead of synthetic or dinner in an elegant restaurant instead of an evening at the movies, she insists on getting it. As the movie begins, she tells her father she is about to marry one of the richest men in England, and that she is leaving that night for his island off the coast of Scotland. At each step of the trip, one of her fiancé’s employees is there to make sure things go smoothly, but once she gets to Scotland the fog is so thick she cannot take the boat to the island. That night she wishes for a wind to blow away the fog, and the next morning she finds that she has been too successful — the wind is so strong that no boats can get to the island. Stuck where she is, she meets some of the people from the community, including Torquil MacNeil (Roger Livesey), a Naval officer home on leave.

“People are very poor around here,” she comments to Catriona, a local woman who is a close friend of Torquil’s. “Not poor, they just haven’t got any money.” “Same thing.” “No, it isn’t.” While waiting for the wind to die down, Joan has a chance to see something of the life she would have as the wife of Sir Robert Bellinger. She meets his bridge- playing friends and hears of his plans to install a swimming pool on the Kiloran estate he is renting. (It turns out that he is renting it from Torquil, who is the Laird of Kiloran.) She visits a castle where Torquil’s ancestors lived, and where it is said that any Laird of Kiloran who goes inside will be cursed. She goes to the 60th wedding anniversary party of a local couple, still very much in love.

Even though it is still not safe to take the boats out, she is desperate to leave, telling Torquil, “I’m not safe here…I’m on the brink of losing everything I’ve ever wanted since I could want anything.” She pays a young man to take her out in the boat, and Torquil goes along. The boat almost sinks, and she loses the bridal gown she had planned to be married in. When it is finally safe to go, Joan and Torquil say goodbye. He asks her to have the bagpipes play for him some day, and she asks him for a kiss. They part, but she returns with three bagpipe players and joins him in the castle, where it turns out the curse provides that any Laird of Kiloran who enters will never leave it a free man. “He shall be chained to a woman until the end of his days and he shall die in his chains.”

Discussion: Like “I Love You Again,” this movie falls into the category of “the life I didn’t know I wanted.” Joan thinks she knows what she wants and where she is going, but she is given the gift of a chance to see the alternatives. She learns that, while the people from the community miss having money, there are other things they care about more. And she learns that she can fall in love with someone who is is going in a very different direction from her ideas of “where I’m going.”

This movie provides a good starting point for a discussion of how we make decisions about what we want out of life, how we pursue those goals, and what we do when we are presented either with obstacles or with new information. And it is a good starting point for a discussion of what is important, and how we determine what is important to us.

Questions for Kids:

· The title of this movie is taken from a famous old folk song. Why did the filmmakers choose it? Why did they insist on an exclamation point at the end?

· Does Joan know where she is going? When does she know? Where is she going?

· What makes Joan change her mind? What do you think her life will be like?

· What is the meaning of the “terrible curse”?

Connections: The little girl who seems so much more mature than her parents is played by then-child actress Petula Clark, who became a pop star in the 1960s (“Downtown”) and appeared in the musical version of “Goodbye Mr. Chips.”

Activities: The bagpipe plays an important role in this movie. Children might enjoy hearing more bagpipe music, especially if they can see it performed live. Look up the Hebrides, where this movie takes place, in an atlas or encyclopedia. Find out if your area has any legends like the ones described in the movie.

Prissy, stingy Larry Wilson (William Powell) bores everyone aboard ship on his way back to the United States from a business trip. When Ryan, a fellow passenger, falls overboard, Larry is accidentally knocked overboard trying to save him. Hit on the head, he comes to as George Carey, a smooth con man whose last memory is of a train ride nine years before, when someone stole the money he was taking to bet on a fight. He has no recollection of his life as Larry, in a small town called Habersville. When he finds “Larry’s” bank book with a substantial balance, he and Ryan decide to visit Habersville to get as much of it as they can.

At the dock, they are met by Larry’s wife, Kay (Myrna Loy). Carey is smitten with her, but she has come to get him to agree to a divorce. They go back to Habersville together, where Carey and Ryan plan an elaborate swindle, with the help of Carey’s former partner, Duke. Constantly confronted with people and questions he cannot remember, Carey manages to fake his way through, even on a hilarious hike with a Scout-like troop of boys. Kay begins to warm to him, and, when she finds out the truth from Ryan, she remains loyal. Carey tries to call off the swindle, and when that does not work, resolves everything with his last con job, happily looking forward to staying in Habersville with Kay.

Powell and Loy appeared in more films together than any screen couple since the silents, and this delightful romantic comedy is one of their best films. Carey’s horror as he finds out more and more about his life as “Larry” is balanced by Powell with smooth maneuvering to keep everyone from finding out that he can’t remember anything about his life in Habersville. Loy is, as always, “the perfect wife,” witty, wise and loyal — she sees the essence of the truth and is adorably charmed by it.

Amnesia of this kind occurs only in the movies (and in soap operas). Even though it makes no sense medically, it does make sense dramatically. When Carey was hit on the head in a robbery nine years before, he became Larry, the boring businessman. It had to be because, at some level, a part of him wanted a “respectable life.” At the end, he is neither Carey nor Larry, but a synthesis of both, ready to stay in Habersville with Kay and live happily ever after. Kay’s motives are also justified. She married a bore like Larry because, as she says, she saw something exciting behind his eyes. She was the only one who glimpsed Carey inside of the stiff and proper Larry. And she also sees Carey at his best. When she says he is noble and honest, she turns out to be right.

Questions for Kids:

· What does Carey do to convince everyone that he is Larry, and that he remembers his life in Habersville?

· When is he closest to being found out, and how does he handle it?

· How does he con Duke into letting him out of the swindle?

· What do you think will happen after Duke leaves with the money?

· Will Carey be at all like Larry in the future? How?

Connections: As in “The Music Man,” this is a story about a con man who comes to a small town and is redeemed by love. Another movie with a funny scene involving a counterfeit Scout leader is “It’s a Wonderful World,” with Jimmy Stewart and Claudette Colbert, and also directed by W.S. Van Dyke. A romantic drama about amnesia is “Random Harvest,” in which Greer Garson marries Ronald Coleman, who has forgotten his past, and loses him when he remembers it.

Any of the Powell and Loy movies are a pleasure to watch, especially “The Thin Man” series and “Libeled Lady.” Harkspur, Jr. is played by Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer of “Our Gang.”