I enjoyed this movie, but I have an idea a lot was left on the cutting room floor. The hardest part of being a director is either putting your vision on the screen in under 120 minutes or creating a movie so compelling that the audience will sit for 3 hours.There is so much we don't know about Ryan and his family. We know he is mute through trauma, his father's death, but we don't know how long since his father's death since apparently at the end of the movie his mother either has a boyfriend or new husband. Which is why I think that some of those details got cut out for the sake of time.All that aside, Ryan Kelly and Hayden Panettiere were very compelling as the young actors. There is a sweet vulnerability about Ryan and a sad undercurrent to Hayden's joie de vivre.There is also a very strong performance by Armin Mueller-Stahl as the grandfather.I enjoyed the movie, as I said in my title, but wish that Mr. Small could have put his story on the screen with more clarity.

I believe that in this era of film, it is extremely difficult to find a movie below a PG-13 rating that measures up to my expectations of a story in film. This movie met those expectations.When I first saw this movie on the shelf at WalMart, I thought it was a cheap kids film, like something the Disney Channel would make. I've seen my share of crappy Disney Channel movies, being an older brother, and trust me, this is far greater than anything they could do.I rarely bother to even look at movies below a PG-13, because they lack realism. This story moved me, because it was so real to me.This movie, while on the low budget independent side of things, is a wonderful film and story. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys Drama or Fantasy, and doubts the capability of a PG rating

I'm sixteen and I just watched this movie. I didn't really understand the plot. It felt too slow and just had no point. In some ways, it was boring because everything was too perfect. I didn't really understand the whole thing with the circus and the black hole. The only thing I understood was that the grandpa lost his Alzheimer's when he was in the place between heaven and earth and he became friends with the girl. This movie made absolutely no sense. Someone reviewed that this movie was original, but I've seen ten million other movies like this. They go to a new world which is perfect, but they have to go back. There's also the "loss of a loved one" element in this movie. I'm hoping that one of these days the people writing scripts will create an understandable and original movie.

I actually watched this movie by accident, but I loved it! Its about a boy who, after an accident, goes to a world where all people who are between life and death stay, until they are ready to take a chance and try to go back to the real world. In this world he meets his grandfather, who is sick with Alzheimer's, and a girl named Melanie, who arrived at this world in the winter, so even though its summer, for her its always winter. Melanie shows Ryan (the boy) the dust factory. SHe shows him that the only way back to the real world is to jump of a big height. If you make it to the other side, you die. If you fall, you go back healthy. After a touching story in that world, Ryan's grandfather decides to take the leap, and makes it. The Ryan takes the leap, and doesn't make it. When Ryan arrives at the real world, his neighbors come along with a girl called Melanie, who had a tumor (or something g in her brain) Of course Ryan doesn't remember her, but they fall in love all over again!:)