Gibson handles ably, if not imaginatively, this cross between a typical episode of The Wonder Years and a hothouse family melodrama in the vein of The Prince of Tides.

The Man Without a Face is such a noble, well-intentioned little film that one feels like an ogre picking on it. Alternately poky and melodramatic--and occasionally witty and insightful--the uneven screenplay too often strains credibility.

The movie is Gibson's debut as a director, and shows him not only with a good visual sense, but with what is even rarer, the confidence to know what needs to be told and what can be left unsaid.

A tear-jerking triumph.