Perhaps there are too many of these diversions this time around, roaming shots of South London's night life set to Michael Nyman's sensitive score, yet I appreciated the minutes to contemplate the milieu and unload some of the film's emotional baggage. Wonderland follows three working class sisters over a four-day period as each struggles to find security in her lonely world. Gina McKee, sporting an endearing croissant hairdo, plays Nadia, the most engaging of them, a mature adult stuck in the mating cycles of women ten years her junior. I must also single out glum Canadian actress Molly Parker, as 'the pregnant one,' but for her curious miscasting: the tentative mannerisms are all wrong here, and the transparent, tea-time accent doesn't help matters.

While Wonderland is hardly innovative for notoriously bleak English cinema, it does resonate with empathetic audience members, including this one. The characters (additionally, an imploding fan of "Babies" (the saddest Pulp song to date), the girls' spiteful mother, and many others--arguably too many) are all bored and dissatisfied; the always sincere Winterbottom, encouraging improvisation from his actors and documenting it all in handheld Super16, offers a gratifyingly unironic view here of common restlessness.-Bill Chambers