Racing Daylight

A clever variation on Akira Kuro-sawa’s Rashomon, this time-traveling romance presents three points of view on events in present and post-Civil War America. The film is smartly scripted by director Nicole Quinn, but its strongest suit is its cast. Melissa Leo (Righteous Kill) plays the schizo lead character, a present-day woman who has hallucinations that she is her 1860s ancestor. The superb David Strathairn (Good Night and Good Luck) steals the picture as the man she loves in both eras, who solves her dilemma when he turns into a third-act narrator who explains most—but not all—of what we have seen.

Shelf Talk: Racing Daylight is hard to categorize, but it is most like memory and time-travel chick flicks The Lake House and The Notebook. Target female viewers looking for a slightly offbeat “timeless romance” with a comfortably happy conclusion.