I wanted to enjoy this film. The setting was beautiful, but the contrast between the joyful exuberance of youth and bracing reality of adulthood was stark. I believe this was what the director was working to achieve. It was one of those films in which it feels just too real, including the surreal moments. That being the case, watching was painful, and I don't feel afterward that there were sufficient merits to outweigh that pain.

Based on the William Saroyan novel "The Human Comedy," "Ithaca" attempts to put a human face on the tragedy of war. The main character is named Homer, which is derived from the bard who sang the praises of the war heroes who fell at Troy. In this twentieth-century adaptation, Homer is a telegram delivery boy who shows up on the doorsteps of the mothers to inform them of their sons' deaths in World War II.The setting is Ithaca, New York, which bears no resemblance to the ancient Greece citadel that was home to Ulysses (Odysseus). The filmmakers' concept has been to create a Norman Rockwell-like atmosphere for the small town.The best performance in the film is that of Alex Neustaedter, who races around town to deliver the tragic news of the war dead. Unfortunately, the film never fleshed out the characters, so that the audience may empathize them. The main problem was the over-emphasis on the narrator's voice at the expense of the words of the characters themselves.While the scenery and location filming (in Virginia, not New York) was beautiful, "Ithaca" never confronted the contradictions of World War II as "the good war," yet one that left a vacuum in lives that could never be filled.

This film tells the story of a fourteen year old boy, who takes up the job as a messenger to deliver telegraphs back in the dark times of the second world war.The book might have been touching, but this film unfortunately does not work. The story does not seen to go anywhere. It doesn't develop the characters, and viewers don't understand why any of the characters are at the point that they are at. Why does the boy need to take up a job? Why does the older guy drink so much? What about the other messenger? The lack of background information makes me feel distant from the characters. It takes forty minutes of screen time to deliver the second telegraph. That's way too long for a film about a boy delivering telegraphs. The film could have explored more on how the sad telegraphs affected him, so there's wasted opportunity. I watched the film for Tom Hanks, and I don't even recall him having said a word!

I have to write a review on this film as I watched it not knowing anything about the book nor the director. I felt the essence of this film plus the heartbreak of WW2 from start to finish. I also thought the acting was superb. I would of liked to have known how exactly the father had died but all in all the film still kept my interest and my heart sank just enough at the end for the film to linger in my thoughts for a while afterwards. To then find out that Meg Ryan had in fact directed it made me wonder if she, just like Angelina would be dragged through the coals and unfortunately I was correct. What does a woman have to do in this day and age to prove her worth as a director? Anyway I think the IMDb rating, in time, will do just that. Well done Meg!