The Magic of Ordinary Days (2005)

People are voting emotionally.

Memorable, crazy movie

I'll tell you why so serious

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

It's 1944. Well educated Olivia Dunne (Keri Russell) from Denver got pregnant out of wedlock by a passing serviceman. She is sent to La Junta, Colorado to marry lonely reserved farmer Ray Singleton (Skeet Ulrich). Both had suffered lost. Ray has only his sister Martha (Mare Winningham) and her family. The farm is isolated and the couple is alone. Olivia is hesitant about Ray despite his efforts to please her. She continues to try to contact the baby's father but receives no reply. She befriends sisters Florence (Tania Gunadi) and Rose (Gwendoline Yeo) who are interned Japanese Americans. Her sister Abby's husband got drafted and Abby tries to get her to return to Denver to keep her company.This is a nice romance and much better made than most other TV romance movies. Keri Russell is amazing. She is enchanting and a compelling actress. Skeet Ulrich does a great job but it would have been good to get a plainer looking actor. It would fit the character better. It does take a very sharp turn into drama at the end. A little bit of foreshadowing of the danger would be very helpful. The central romance is touching and the story is as beautiful as the butterflies.

The message of this movie really mesmerized me. I watched this story over and over again on YouTube and decided to buy a copy on DVD. Today I received it, and already watched it three times.If you like – as me - to find some blanks filled in, you might perhaps enjoy http://tmoodfanficindex.blogspot.nl, where you'll find some fantasies of other fans of TMoOD. Maybe you are inspired after reading these story lines and like to write down your own. Please feel free to share that with other fans like me. I wonder what Livy (Kerri Russell) and Ray (Skeet Ulrich) might think of them…Some of the story lines are very interesting and written according to the way Livy and Ray might live it, others don't.

This is one of those rare occasions where I did both, I saw the movie and I read the book. They are basically faithful to each other. Having seen the movie first, as I read the book I was able to visualize the characters as the actors who played them. However, I must say the actors are more attractive than I would have visualized them, based on the descriptions in the book.It is 1944 in Colorado. American GIs were everywhere, as well as POWs and Japanese-Americans required to live in camps and to help farmers with their crops. Everyone was expected to pull together for the war effort, and fuel was not to be wasted on unnecessary driving.Keri Russell is Livy, the least attractive of several sisters from Denver. At a social event she meets a soldier, she is surprised he warms up to her instead of one of her sisters, but it seems real. After a few encounters she does what she never thought she would do, she slept with him and of course became pregnant. In the meantime he shipped out, he never wrote as he promised, and Livy never knew if she would hear from him again.Livy's dad was a minister and especially in those days and that family circumstance, having an unwed daughter at home was not an attractive option. So her dad contacted a minister in another part of Colorado and arranged for Livy to be married to a single man, a farmer.Skeet Ulrich is good as Ray Singleton, lone resident of a large, fairly prosperous farm. His parents were gone and his only brother had joined the war effort and was killed in the Pearl Harbor attack. He is a raw man, who gets up before dawn and works various parts of the farm until dark. That is his life. But he also has a soft side, however lacking in culture, and he welcomes Livy, even embracing the thought of their having a baby from a different man, a stranger.So the movie really is about Livy and Ray, a 20-something couple thrust together under very unusual circumstances, during a very difficult period in our history. Livy's sisters are expecting her to have the baby, divorce Ray quietly, and return to her home and continue on her path towards accomplishing great things. But Ray is expecting Livy to become his wife for life, for both of them to fall in love with each other. Ray's sister and other relatives and friends make Livy feel very welcome. Thus the movie explores this dynamic, and how each of them grow in new ways.There is a very interesting side story of two Japanese-American teenage girls that Livy gets to know. She first encounters them chasing and drawing butterflies. They eventually become good friends, they enrich each-others' lives in many ways.I've always liked Keri Russell since I first saw her on the TV series "Felicity". She was also good in other movies. She is certainly very cute, but she is also a believable actress. Ulrich I was not really familiar with, but he was also very good here.SPOILERS: The two sisters get themselves into trouble, by befriending two German POWs, and getting Livy to give them a ride south, to New Mexico. Livy was duped, but the escapees got caught and the teens were tried for treason. In time Livy learned that she indeed was falling in love with Ray, and as the movie ends we feel that they will stay together and become a happy family. Livy never learned the fate of the father of her child, he might have died in the European fighting.

What can you say about this movie. I was sitting in my kitchen today when I was approached by my grandma who had rented some movies from the local library. She told me this was a great movie...and I really respect her knowledge of movies, so i said what the hell and popped it in the DVD players while enjoying a fribble. Unfortunately it was one of the most tedious 2 hours i have ever spent on this planet. What am i Missing? I see everyone loved this movie. The acting was terrible, the set looked fake, and neither of the main characters ever showed me why or how hey fell in love...btw what the hell was the freak Japanese girl smiling for...is it me or was she the happiest internee of all time.