"She Came to Me" is a film that attempts to balance airy romance and psychological depth, operatic fantasy and gritty reality, and farce and fatalism. Writer-director Rebecca Miller aims to resurrect the lost art of screwball comedy with this film, which also incorporates elements of literal opera. The story follows Steven, a shy and neurotic composer, and his wife Patricia, who acts as his facilitator. Patricia, a former therapist, takes caretaking to extreme levels, offering life-skills advice and obsessively cleaning their Brooklyn brownstone. However, Miller avoids turning Patricia into a shrew or a shallow character, instead presenting her with generosity and sympathy. The film also introduces another family, Trey, a court reporter and Civil War reenactor, his partner Magdalena, and their teenage daughter Tereza. Eventually, the two families intersect through various plot machinations, including a chance encounter between Steven and a free-spirited tugboat captain named Katrina. While "She Came to Me" attempts to balance comedy, pathos, and melodrama, it also incorporates opera performances and a dizzying array of narrative convolutions. Despite some heavy-handed conceits, the film succeeds in moments of irresistible sweetness and eccentricity. The cast, including Peter Dinklage, Anne Hathaway, and Marisa Tomei, deliver committed performances that keep the film afloat. Overall, "She Came to Me" explores the messy glory of in-between-ness, where most people reside.
