The Fantasticks

Try to remember: it was 1995. Boston's own Joey McIntyre, he of the silvery tenor and teen-idol charisma, the eternal New Kid on the Block, and Jean Louisa Kelly, a pixieish triple threat fresh from her star solo in Mr. Holland's Opus, were cast as Matt and Luisa, the most famous pair of ingenues since Romeo and Juliet. This film version of the 1960s musical (the longest-running show Off Broadway) languished for five years and almost went straight to video before an uncredited Francis Ford Coppola decided to recut it. Thank goodness -- it would have been a shame if this charming and surprisingly effective adaptation had been overlooked.

A subversive boy-meets-girl-then-loses-her-to-seductive-stranger story with some of the best songs in the history of musical theater (the notorious "Rape Song" was cut from the stage version years ago), this film escapes looking dated or goofy by relying on a timelessly simple production design. The traveling-sideshow setting, with echoes of Fellini, Rober Kaylor's Carny, and Jean Gabriel Albicocco's The Wanderer, offers a hint of dark menace to balance the story's saccharine potential. Joel Grey as Luisa's father, Jonathan Morris (a diminutive Willem Dafoe/Marjoe Gortner type) as narrator El Gallo, Barnard Hughes, and mute magician Teller round out the impressive cast. At the Kendall Square and in the suburbs.

-- Peg Aloi