I liked most of the dialogue, I liked the cast, I thought it was well acted. I particularly enjoyed Ellen DeGeneres' perfect deadpan performance.<br /><br />What didn't work for me was: (1) the drawn-out affair with the younger man (too long, too seemingly out of character for Helen), (2) the seemingly endless cinematic cliches, mostly visual but including interminable voiced over re-readings of the love letter itself (its contents should have a mystery); (3) a young woman feminist-scholar and, ironically, a fireworks scene (no wonder this reminded me of that horrid How to Make an American Quilt movie); (4) the bumbling "gotcha" cop who smells "dope" everywhere (no cliche there either!); and (5) a nauseatingly romanticized small town setting.<br /><br />I would have preferred the film to more persuasively explore the source of (or even glorify) Helen's bitterness, to have included much more of DeGeneres' character, to have eliminated or reduced the various intergenerational artifices, and to be a little less uncritical of small town life.<br /><br />Had it been developed as a play first, those criticisms might have been addressed before committing the material to this film, which unfortunately is decidedly mediocre.