Amy Adams and Frances McDormand in Miss Pettigrew Lives for a DayMISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR A DAY

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, in which an unemployed British governess becomes the accidental social secretary to a ditzy American chanteuse, is the sort of movie that's likely to be (agreeably) written off as "lighthearted." But that description doesn't suggest just how exhilarating this "lighthearted" outing actually is, or just how remarkable Frances McDormand and Amy Adams are in it. I'm the type of person who instinctively rolls his eyes at the "you'll laugh, you'll cry" plaudit, but at director Bharat Nalluri's Miss Pettigrew, I laughed, I cried, and I don't think a minute passed in its hour-and-a-half running length in which I didn't grin from ear to ear.

How strange that, of the two movies I recently caught as a double-feature - Jonathan Demme's The Manchurian Candidate and Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, directed by Dude, Where's My Car? auteur Danny Leiner - not only is Harold & Kumar the better of the two, it's the only one really worth discussing in any detail.