Four Stars Plus Parking

The Plotniks and Mushniks saw 'Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress' yesterday at an old fashioned family movie house in the western section of Saint Plotniko. The French movie was in Chinese with English subtitles, the theater is named after the first Spanish explorer to stick his toes in the Pacific Ocean, and the neighborhood is today populated by thousands of folks from the other side of that ocean.

While The Great Plotnik fixed on the Shanghai Dumpling House, Mrs. Mushnik invoked her parking karma and the Plotmobile settled into a spot fifty feet from the theater. This, in and of itself, is remarkable, but the film was even more remarkable.

Those who had read the book, which probably included most of the dozen people watching the movie, were ready for a huge letdown, which is usually what happens when romances are Hollywoodized. Worse yet, the film was French, so they were required to add several more layers of maudlin to the original ending. Amazingly, however, the tacked-on new ending, though tres, tres lagrimeuse, didn't kill the story -- in fact, it gave everyone something extra to think about afterwards.

The seamstress was lovely. Her grandfather could make anchors out of thread. The musician got a lot of mileage out of one string. Sadly, the Shanghai Dumpling House was closed, which knocks the rating down half a star.

The Great Plotnik Film Division awards 'Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress' Four Stars plus an Extra Half Star for Meritorious Parking.