The rest of the cast shines quite nicely, working off of Penn’s lead. Pfeiffer has one of her strongest roles in years as the driven Rita – even if one particular breakdown moment screams “Oscar clip!” in bright neon exclamation points – and little Fleming is astonishingly good as the wise-beyond-her-years Lucy. Jessie Nelson directs with a relatively steady hand and his use of Beatle’s classics is more inspired than you would first expect. While his and Kristine Johnson’s script does dip far too close to cheap sentiment at times, mostly it manages to maintain course, justly earning is its tears in the end.liuxuepaper.com