Ithaca is a 2015 American drama film directed by Meg Ryan and written by Erik Jendresen.

The film stars Alex Neustaedter, Jack Quaid, Meg Ryan, Sam Shepard, Hamish Linklater and Tom Hanks.

In 1942, Homer Macauley is a determined 14-year-old who seeks work delivering telegrams to take care of his widowed mother Katie, his older sister Bess and his 4-year-old brother Ulysses.

Homer's older brother Marcus, along with most of the young men of the town, has gone to serve in World War II, leaving the families worried.

Homer loses his boyish innocence as he delivers telegrams bringing messages of love, wishes, pain, and death, hoping that one of them announces the return of his brother.

That night, Homer reads a letter from Marcus out loud to Mr. Grogan, saying he'll shut out the world if his brother dies in the war.

[9] In a May 6, 2016 Q&A after a screening of the movie at Geena Davis' Bentonville Film Festival, Ryan said: "The music is so beautiful.

"Sugar Hill Mountain" is a fiddle-driven folk song that describes an idyllic location where there's "bubble gum and cigarette trees," no clocks, every day is spring, and anything you need is "gratis."

Meanwhile, the piano-heavy "Seeing You Around" has the sound of a 1940s standard (the time period the movie takes place in) and is made all the more authentically '40s-sounding by Redbone's gruff, baritone vocals.

[12] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 36 out of 100, based on nine critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews.