only because of Robin Williams....

You put it very well when you stated, "Robin Williams is one of my favorite actors, and believe him and Bill Murray are the best in scenes where they do nothing....you always sense something is brewing inside of both." I never thought of it that way but you are correct.

As for the Lionel character, he seemed to be extremely warm and outgoing and a family type person with his big family at home. The character was believable to me that he would take someone like Vladimir home to stay with them. So I had no trouble with that aspect of the story. It's one of my all time favorites. Maybe a little of it has to do with me being from New York originally, and it's so good to see the city as I remember it. Now it's so commercialized and just doesn't have the same grit to it that it once had.

I agree with you about it falling apart around the middle after starting with so much promise. Now I can see why it was relegated to HBO back when it came out and didn't get much buzz at the box office. The romance while at first interesting was pretty weak. I mean like she wouldn't have guys waiting in line for her affection. The rest of the characers and dialogue were just odd like it didn't know where to go after the director made his statement.