Add "The Great New Wonderful" to the list of films about 9/11 but, unlike "United 93" or next month's "World Trade Center," it is set in September 2002 and it's not based on real people.

		'The Great New Wonderful' Rating: R for language, some sexuality Starring: Maggie Gyllenhaal, Olympia Dukakis Director: Danny Leiner Web site: www.greatnewwonderfulthemovie.com/

While it boasts a terrific cast, including Maggie Gyllenhaal and Olympia Dukakis, it can't approach the power or appeal of the other films.

In the movie's press notes, director Danny Leiner says "9/11 hovers around the film like a fog," and the fog starts to burn off as the movie builds to the one-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks. He provides five sketches -- and they are sketches, not full-fledged portraits or satisfying studies -- of life in New York.

The title can be interpreted any number of ways. Of course life post-9/11 is anything but the great new wonderful. That's also the name of a business specializing in custom desserts, run by Emme (Gyllenhaal).

She is trying to unseat the reigning pastry princess, Safarah (Edie Falco). When Emme "accidentally" runs into her competitor, also angling for a society teen's birthday cake, Safarah says, "What a business. After everything that's happened, I cannot believe that nothing has changed."

But things have changed more than Safarah realizes or acknowledges. That is the point of "Great New Wonderful," made none too subtly in the opening scene by a psychologist played by Tony Shalhoub.

"Shock can be a tricky thing," he says. "Sometimes, our emotional response to horrific events can get buried, hidden from us at first, only to appear after some time has passed."

That would be the movie's mission statement as it introduces Shalhoub's accidental patient (Jim Gaffigan); the pastry chef and her husband; an older woman (Dukakis, a standout) who lives a solitary life, despite her husband planted in front of the TV in the next room; a married couple (Judy Greer and Tom McCarthy) trying to cope with their increasingly disruptive son; and immigrants and security guards (Naseeruddin Shah, Sharat Saxena) who live side by side with their families but have opposite personalities.

"Great New Wonderful," written by stage actor-playwright Sam Catlin and opening today at the Oaks, has a modest and a tricky goal. Rather than examining 9/11 or those most directly affected by the strikes, it takes a few steps back and focuses on characters whose lives seem to be chugging along, but always with the reminder that the world has changed.

As one man says to another, "Life is very short, my friend. We should all know that by now."

In the end, the restrained "Great New Wonderful" is intriguing but unsatisfying, particularly when it comes to the thorny choices faced by the family of the troubled boy. The other sketches can function as self-contained nuggets but this one, with the most at stake, leaves us hanging.