''The Great New Wonderful'' is a 2005 American

comedy-drama Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...

film written by

Sam Catlin Sam Catlin is an American television writer, director, and producer. He is the showrunner of AMC's ''Preacher'', and previously worked as a writer/producer on ''Breaking Bad''. He has been nominated for a Writers Guild of America (WGA) Award for ...

and directed by Danny Leiner. It stars

Naseeruddin Shah Naseeruddin Shah (born 20 July 1950) is an Indian actor. He is notable in Indian parallel cinema. He has also starred in international productions. He has won numerous awards in his career, including three National Film Awards, three Filmfare A ...

Tony Shalhoub Anthony Marc Shalhoub ( ; born October 9, 1953), is an American actor. His accolades include five Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, six Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Tony Award, and a Grammy Award nomination. He played Adrian Monk in the USA Net ...

Jim Gaffigan James Christopher Gaffigan (born July 7, 1966) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and producer. His material often addresses fatherhood, laziness, food, religion, and general observations. He is regarded as a "clean" comic, using l ...

Maggie Gyllenhaal Margalit Ruth "Maggie" Gyllenhaal (; born November 16, 1977) is an American actress and filmmaker. Part of the Gyllenhaal family, she is the daughter of filmmakers Stephen Gyllenhaal and Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal, Naomi Achs, and the older sister o ...

and

Olympia Dukakis Olympia Dukakis (June 20, 1931 – May 1, 2021) was an American actress. She performed in more than 130 stage productions, more than 60 films and in 50 television series. Best known as a screen actress, she started her career in theater. Not lon ...

, and tells the tales of several New Yorkers a year after the

September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...

. The film premiered on April 22, 2005 at the

Tribeca Film Festival The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by TriBeCa Productions, Tribeca Productions. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive progra ...

and was released in the United States on June 26, 2006.

Plot

''The Great New Wonderful'' is a series of vignettes of incidents taking place concurrently around

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

. The only other thing linking the incidents is the month in which they occur: September 2002. Recurring themes include frustration and sugar. The vignettes include: * An accountant (

) undergoing a therapy session in the office of a passive-aggressive psychologist (

). * Two immigrants from India on security detail for a visiting dignitary. * An ambitious pastry chef (

) preparing a professional pitch that she hopes will make her the reigning doyenne of New York's competitive cake scene. * A Brooklyn housewife (

) fixes her husband's dinner and then sits at the kitchen table making

collage Collage (, from the french: coller, "to glue" or "to stick together";) is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. ...

s out of old magazines while her husband sits on the balcony, smoking a cigarette. * Allison & David Burbage (

Judy Greer Judith Therese Evans (born July 20, 1975), known professionally as Judy Greer, is an American actress. She is primarily known as a character actress, who has appeared in a wide variety of films. She first rose to prominence in a variety of suppor ...

Tom McCarthy Thomas McCarthy (also Tom and Tommy) may refer to: Academia *Thomas A. McCarthy (born 1940), American professor of philosophy *Thomas J. McCarthy (born 1956), American professor of polymer chemistry at the University of Massachusetts *J. Thomas Mc ...

) struggle to keep their marriage together while coping with their increasingly difficult and strangely self-possessed 10-year-old son.

Cast

— Judy Hillerman *

— Sandie *

— Allison Burbage *

— Emme Keeler *

— David Burbage *

Sharat Saxena Sharat Saxena (born 17 August 1950) is an Indian actor who appears in Hindi films along with Telugu, Malayalam and Tamil films. He has acted in more than 250 Bollywood films. Saxena started his career in the early 1970s and has mainly played su ...

— Satish *

— Avi *

— Dr. Trabulous *

Edie Falco Edith Falco (born July 5, 1963) is an American actress. She is best known for portraying Carmela Soprano on the HBO series ''The Sopranos'' (1999–2007), and Nurse Jackie Peyton on the Showtime series ''Nurse Jackie'' (2009–2015). She also ...

— Safarah Polsky *

Stephen Colbert Stephen Tyrone Colbert ( ; born May 13, 1964) is an American comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and television host. He is best known for hosting the satirical Comedy Central program ''The Colbert Report'' from 2005 to ...

— Mr. Peersall *

Jim Parsons James Joseph Parsons (born March 24, 1973) is an American actor. From 2007 to 2019, he played Sheldon Cooper in the CBS sitcom ''The Big Bang Theory''. He has received various awards, including four Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead A ...

— Justin * Seth Gilliam – Clayton *

Will Arnett William Emerson Arnett (; born May 4, 1970) is a Canadian actor, comedian and producer. He is best known for his roles as Gob Bluth in the Fox/Netflix series '' Arrested Development'' (2003–2006, 2013, 2018–2019) and as the titular char ...

– Danny Keeler *

Tony Kushner Anthony Robert Kushner (born July 16, 1956) is an American author, playwright, and screenwriter. Lauded for his work on stage he's most known for his seminal work ''Angels in America'' which earned a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award. At the turn ...

– Himself *

Ari Graynor Ariel Geltman Graynor (born April 27, 1983) is an American actress, known for her roles in TV series such as ''I'm Dying Up Here'', ''The Sopranos'' and ''Fringe'', in stage productions such as ''Brooklyn Boy'' and ''The Little Dog Laughed'', and ...

– Lisa Krindel *

Julie Dretzin Julie Dretzin (born May 24, 1968) is an American actress and audiobook reader. She made her professional acting debut in the 1993 Broadway production ''The Sisters Rosensweig''. Her roles in the television series ''Breaking Bad'' (2010) and ''The ...

– Julie Driscoll *

Rosemarie DeWitt Rosemarie Braddock DeWitt (born October 26, 1971) is an American actress. DeWitt played Emily Lehman in the Fox television series '' Standoff'' (2006–07), co-starring with her future husband Ron Livingston, as well as Charmaine Craine on ''Unit ...

– Debbie *

Tonye Patano Tonye T. Patano (born October 16, 1961) is an American actress. She may be best known as Heylia James on the television series '' Weeds''. She has appeared in television shows such as ''Law & Order'', ''Sex and the City'', ''Monk'' and ''Third ...

– Shirley * Alex McCord – Jessilyn *

Dick Latessa Richard Robert Latessa (September 15, 1929 – December 19, 2016) was an American stage, film, and television actor. Early life Latessa was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1929. After serving in the Army in maybe 1952, he began performing in Clevela ...

– Jerry Binder *

– Councilman Blenick *

Marilyn Chris Marilyn Chris (born May 19, 1938) is an American actress, possibly best known as Wanda Webb Wolek on the American Broadcasting Company, ABC soap opera, ''One Life to Live''. Education Born in Brooklyn, New York, Chris attended the High School of ...

– Phyllis * Anita Gillette – Lainie *

David Costabile David Costabile (; born January 9, 1967) is an American actor. He is best known for his television work, having appeared in supporting roles in several television series such as '' Billions'', ''Breaking Bad'', ''Damages'', ''Flight of the Conch ...

– Vending Machine Guy *

Meredith Ostrom Meredith Joy Ostrom is an American actress. She graduated from the New York University Tisch School of the Arts where she got her BFA degree with a double major in Drama and Fine arts with a minor in Cinema Studies. After graduation she moved t ...

– Anita

Reception

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film has an approval rating of 73% based on 41 reviews, and an average rating of 6.7/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Set in post-9/11 New York, this largely evocative dramedy interweaves the stories of five disconnected individuals who share an unspoken emotional malaise that shadows their attempts at returning to normal life." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 57 out of 100, based on 14 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

References

External links

Scott, A.O. (2006, June 23). ''Everything Is Different, but Life Goes On Anyway''. The New York Times, p. B12
* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Great New Wonderful, The 2005 films 2005 comedy-drama films American comedy-drama films Films directed by Danny Leiner Films scored by John Swihart Films set in 2002 Films set in New York City Films based on the September 11 attacks 2000s English-language films 2000s American films