Reveals some great truths without ever fully tipping its hand, and in doing so makes the feature-length film seem formulaic and trite in comparison. If I had to do it over again, I'd watch this and stop there.

Excellent film.

An ambiguous little worm of a picture. On one hand there's a little too much artifice (the "rules" of talking to Karl), but on the other there's a lot of emotional ground covered between four characters over 25 minutes. Walsh kind of steals the show, and Ringwald's not really good enough to follow his act, but Mays' warden, one step away from his own breakdown, adds a tension to Thornton's monologue that she can't summon alone. Thornton's Karl is never played as a magical disability, thankfully.