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I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

When you're introduced to our main character, seemingly a sad-sack cynic, you expect another Indie flick about depressed people in a nihilistic world. But that's not really who she is, and she's surrounded with anything but that.Her mother loves life and always looks on the bright side. Her gay coworker is cheerful and compassionate. Her ex boyfriend is misguided by sweet and well meaning. Her dates are mischievous but funny and confident. Also, our male protagonist is a great guy. He's trying to better himself and find the good in nature and simple pleasures. He does this while trying to maintain respect for his roots. So as you can see, this is not the typical Indie take on modern people. Of course it came out in 1998, so perhaps the pre-911 film world reflected a world of hope that would soon vanish. Phllip Seymour Hoffman is great here. What a funny, quirky character, without being pretentious or overly self-righteous. He plays it to perfection. Boston looks real and romantic, without the urban or tourist clichés of a Paris or New York. We see that it's just the right size with the right pace to get some meaningful life done. However, one visiting character nails its colder side with the perfect comment about all the schools, hospitals, and bars.What a great concept. To have people living in one interesting city, while fantasizing the whole time about another one. Rio perhaps. Walking the byways of Boston with Bossa Nova accompaniment. Of course let's not forget that Brazil is filled with intense poverty, shantytowns, and violent crime. So the music is more a state-of-mind than a reality. Perhaps that's what we are all seeking, and what the picture was ultimately trying to show. That we all strive for some paradigm or ideal that may not be attainable, but the notion of it gives us hope and keeps us in the game.

(Spoilers) The best way to classify this film would be to say that it is an indie romantic comedy. Going into it, you already know who will end up with whom, as they encounter each other in a multitude of ways, as if fate is knocking on their respective doors. There is a lighthearted theme throughout of destiny versus random events, but that is just part of this talky, at times seriocomic and sardonic, and other times genuinely affecting and somewhat enlightening film. Furthermore, it doesn't matter that you know they will end up together; this is about THAT journey, about fish in sea, or singles in bars, and the painstaking, embarrassing and asinine things we'll do to seek that proverbial 'one' out. It is replete in imagery as well, half the time the characters are in what seems to be The New England Aquarium, including a little side story with a blowfish. Philip Seymour Hoffman is hilarious as Erin's activist ex-boyfriend, lost in his own little idealistic world too. However, in the end, boy meets girl, and they wander from Wonderland Station.

"Next Stop Wonderland" was an absolutely wonderful romantic comedy. It right away became one of my favorite of the genre of magic realism bringing lovers together genre. It helps to like the New England Aquarium and Boston (the title is a pun on a transit stop) - hey who doesn't.Hope Davis was wonderful in "Daytrippers" and she shines here. It's just a matter of time until she gets cast as the sister to Lisa Kudrow in a movie.Terrific use of lovely Brazilian music all through. (originally written 4/11/1999)

One of my life objectives is to watch every single movie with Phillip Seymour Hoffman in it. Since I saw him in a movie I've said I never finished watching ("State and Main"), I have been in love with his way of working; his body language and mostly his voice. While I may sound exaggerated, it's something I'm trying to do, and it gets me to peculiar places; like "Next Stop Wonderland".Hoffman is not an important player in the film, even when he appears at the beginning. As Sean, he is dumping his girlfriend, Erin (Hope Davis), the most important player in the film. How the filmmakers have created Erin is remarkable. It had been a long time since I've seen a well-rounded character like this one. She's eccentric, tough, and now extremely depressed as abandoned by the man she loves. She spends her lonely days reading random phrases in a book written by her father. She loves that.However, her elegant mother Piper (Holland Taylor) puts an ad in the newspaper, proposing a single, outgoing, charming and likable woman looking for a couple. "That's not me mom…That's you!", Erin tells her mother gently. Now Erin finds herself with calls and messages from men whose ages start in 30 and end in 50; no advices from her gay friends.Continuing, Erin encounters different guys in one bar, and they try to win her with metaphoric phrases, without knowing the authors she knows by heart; cultured comments she knows are clichéd, and in one case sweet talking that ends up in a wedding ring falling out of a wallet. This scene shows the comedic talent of director Brad Anderson, and his writing collaborator Lyn Vaus. They also show other talents, like the dramatic one, as they keep their characters realistic enough so we understand how they feel when things occur to them.Some guys are making a bet to win Erin. One of them is Alan's (Alan Gelfant) brother. Although this seems like the other side of the world, it's in the same city where this Alan works in the aquarium as he studies to become wiser about that. He's already an old man, but is cultured as no one around him, and passionate about what he does (kind of like Erin, right?). Even when Erin and Alan are so similar; each of them doesn't know the other exists. They have crossed sometimes probably, but while Alan experiences a relationship with a younger girl that claims to love him, Erin is approached by every old guy in a bar and almost conquered by a Brazilian "Latin lover"…But it doesn't seem right.Brad Anderson loves his characters and when his camera moves fast at times and slowly at others, we sense he cares about his actors work. That's why Hope Davis shines in this role, which is comedic and different to what we usually get from her. Besides, she got into the park, and so did Alan Gelfant, who talks and looks like a young Sylvester Stallone but with more comedic gifts than the latter would ever dream of.Don't bother yourself asking if these two characters belong together because thy do. But at 100 minutes of film, Brad Anderson stops in Wonderland and encounters the leads. But he is so original and so far away from typical film-making that he won't give you what you're expecting for, like everyone does. He will leave it to your imagination.