My Girl

You'll find sunshine on a cloudy day with this bittersweet charmer focusing on the delicate relationship between a motherless 10-year-old girl (Anna Chlumsky) and a young boy (Macaulay Culkin). At the same time their friendship grows, so does the romance between the girl's mortician father (Dan Aykroyd) and the free-spirited morgue beautician (Jamie Lee Curtis). Also stars Griffin Dunne, Richard Masur. 102 min. Standard; Soundtracks: English Dolby Digital Surround, French Dolby Digital Surround, Spanish Dolby Digital mono; Subtitles: English, French, Spanish; theatrical trailer.

A doomed Macaulay Culkin becomes the object of affection for a little girl (Anna Chlumsky), estranged from her widowed father (Dan Aykroyd). This somewhat daring premise has various emotional buffers to keep young viewers from going into shock from Culkin's demise, but the film is also not shut off from real feelings. And while the story remains safely predictable, at the end of the day it is still a bittersweet experience. Culkin's performance is okay in that somewhat mannered way of his post-Home Alone career, but Anna Chlumsky is unusually sophisticated in her understanding of her character and situation. Aykroyd and Jamie Lee Curtis are perfectly stable as the kids' single parents. Directed by Howard Zieff (Private Benjamin). The DVD release has a full-screen presentation, Dolby sound, theatrical trailer, and optional French and Spanish soundtracks. --Tom Keogh