It's a baseball fable based in 1988 in Iowa, Boston, and Minnesota.

Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) and his wife, Annie (Amy Madigan), are ex-1960s radicals who have taken up farming in Iowa. They have a daughter, Karin (Gaby Hoffmann), and drive an old VW bus with George McGovern stickers on it. Unfortunately, Ray's father, John (Dwier Brown), has died, and Ray never had a chance to reconcile with him before leaving home at age 17.

His father was a minor league ballplayer, and Ray still loves the game. One day in his cornfield, he hears, "If you build it, he will come." This leads to a series of messages and dreams that lead Ray, supported by his wife, to build a baseball field in a cornfield only to find deceased baseball players, including Shoeless Joe Jackson (Ray Liotta), playing on it.

The voices and dreams also lead him to connect with a famous writer, Terence Mann (James Earl Jones), who has not written in years, and a baseball player from 1922, Archibald Graham (Burt Lancaster), who played one inning in his career and never had a chance to bat. Meanwhile, the farm is in danger of bankruptcy, partly because of building the baseball field. However, everything nicely resolves by the end.

I think you either like or dislike this movie. There's little reality to it, but for me, today it was a wonderful story. Kevin Costner didn't allow his earnestness to get the better of him. James Earl Jones does a great job of being a mysterious writer based on J. D. Salinger. Ray Liotta was too articulate for the illiterate Shoeless Joe Jackson, but hey, this is a fable.

The critics who didn't like it thought it was too gooey. Today I was in the mood for gooey.

Let's talk about endings here for a moment (don't worry there's no spoilers here) - every minute of a film is building toward an ending, but so often films mess up all the great story they've built up in the last few minutes.

That's why I want to draw your attention to 'Field of Dreams'. I'm sure by now we're all familiar with the premise - an Iowa farmer hears a disembodied voice that says, "If you build it he will come", which in turn leads him to plow under his cornfield to build a full baseball diamond.

Many people have talked about the themes explored by this movie (and there are many - family, redemption, pursuit of dreams, etc.), or the very believable characters. All of that is great.

But what I especially appreciated about this film was the ending. Everything builds up to it, and like so many things in the film, it ends on a perfect, serene note. It would have been so easy to tack on an extra scene or two; so tempting to tie everything up with a nice bow; belabor the point; but one single shot sums everything up and fades to credits.

A crash lesson in endings done right.

Even a baseball buff like myself realises this is not a baseball movie. And you don't have to be to appreciate it. Not one of my favourite films but one that touched me for a long time afterwards. I didn't know what to expect at the start but as the story took these unexpected twists and turns the more engrossed I got caught up in it. Ray's confrontation with Terence Mann, Ani Kinsella's spontaneous outburst at the PTA meeting, giving Archie Graham a lift to the game. It was all a mystery till right to the end.

The most heart rending moment I guess was at the end. Not a dry eye in the house. Enough said. Without giving the story away I can only add a wistful hope, if only everyone had a second chance at saying what we really feel to our loved ones...before its too late.