It's always a vibrant surprise when players you've been watching for years as dramatic talents suddenly blossom forth as singers.

Such is the case here with the Oscar-winning Mary Steenburgen who, in this feelgood film, proves herself a blues singer of grace, warmth and talent.

She's one of the characters within a few blocks who come under the influence of Marina (Demi Moore), a clairvoyant from a lighthouse, who has moved to the neighbourhood because she felt fated to marry Leo (George Dzundza), a butcher as plump as his loin chops.

That's part of a greater destiny for Marina, involving Leo, Dr Tremor (Jeff Daniels), a psychiatrist who feels 'uncomfortable' being called a shrink, his aggressive girlfriend (Margaret Colin), Grace (Frances McDormand), a neurotic clothes-shop assistant, and others whose lives Marina touches and enriches.

Steenburgen has the best lines as well as the best songs. 'I'm looking,' she tells McDormand, 'for something dowdy and plain.'

It's a romantic fantasy that's never juvenile, and, for her fey and fetching Cassandra of the tenements, Moore might well have been Oscar-nominated had not this nice little film been a flop at the box-office.