RESTLESS IN MONTEVIDEO

I'm in Montevideo, Uruguay, looking out of my hotel window at the peaceful Río de la Plata below. I don't want to go out. I don't want to stay in. So I'm watching a TV movie starring Delta Burke as a compulsive gambler. (Don't worry, I've been in Montevideo before, so I'm not missing out on any sights that I haven't already seen.) Ellen Page, pre-Juno, plays Delta's daughter. Interestingly, the movie, Going For Broke, is from 2003, when Ellen was 16, but she doesn't look much different than she does now. I wonder if, in her wildest dreams, she ever imagined back then that in just a few years, she'd be an Oscar-nominated big-screen movie star. Probably not. Funny how life takes you to strange, unexpected places. That's both the beauty and the cruelty of it.