***SPOILERS*** Charming little depression era film set in New Jersey about a women who's only way of forgetting her drab hard and lonely life as a waitress and only breadwinner of her household. Who's husband Monk, Danny Alello, is a no good drunken bum who should know and appreciate how lucky he is to have such a sweet and caring women like Cecilia, Mia Farrow, for a wife. <br /><br />Trying to forget her troubles Cecilia spends her free time going to the neighborhood movie house, like millions of Americans did back then in the 1930's, to get lost in a dream of better times that are projected on the great sliver screen. Woody Allen and Mia Farrow were never better as a director and actress in this gem of a movie. The ending of the film, even though it's a bit downbeat, was just what the film needed when you realize that dreams are best kept to oneself and in their right place. Not to try to make them real since you'll only end up hurt and disenchanted as well as detached from the real world by thinking that they are. <br /><br />Mia Farrow is sweet and touching as Cecilia as she falls so madly in love with the character Tom Baxter, Jeff Daniels, of the movie "The Purple Rose of Cairo". She goes to see the movie every night until Tom,noticing her, comes to life and jumps off the screen to the shock and surprise of Ceilia to wine and dine and start up a romance with her. <br /><br />Tom is charming but at the same time very naive about the real world. Since everything he knows about life is from the movie that he's in, which is G rated where everybody is both rich and happy, and not the hard truths about depression life in America. These realities confuse Tom since he never was in a movie like the world that he's in now. <br /><br />Tom doesn't know what a hooker is and when he's picked up by one who takes him to where she works, a bordello, Tom thinks he's at some social gathering with a number of well dolled up high class ladies. Tom is such a nice guy that when Cecilia"s husband Monk fights with him Tom after he knocks him down, with the old one two, offers Monk a hand to help him up! Only to be kicked and punched for his noble effort.<br /><br />Meanwhile the actor who plays Tom Gil Shepherd tries to get Cecilia to get Tom back in the motion picture to finally end the movie so he can get back to his acting career. While back at the movie house the cast of the movie are just left stranded on the screen doing nothing and the audience is up in arms and wants their money back. In the end Tom, realizing that he's not meant to be in the real world, goes back into the film "The Purple Rose of Cairo" and when the movie is over so is Tom and Ceilia's romance. <br /><br />Ceilia find the truth out when she goes to the theater and sees a new movie on the screen and as we see the movie "Top Hat" Inter-cut with Cecilia and as Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dance and sing "Cheek to Cheek". Cecilia's eyes fill up with tears and then when she realizes that her romance with Tom was a dream but by being a dream, as short as it was,it will never be forgotten and will always be with her forever like the movies that she loves so much.<br /><br />Beautiful little movie that really tugs on your heart strings and chokes you up in the end that proves what the saying "Big gifts come in little packages" really mean.