The myriad characters of The Great New Wonderful have no idea how miserable they are, or why they're so miserable. They wander through their New York lives repressing some kind of rage or sadness that can't quite be articulated, only sublimated through furious ambition or denial or work, work, work.

First Independent Maggie Gyllenhaal stars in "The Great New Wonderful."

It's almost the one-year anniversary of 9/11, but this fact, like the roiling emotions that can't escape, creeps under the surface of the story. Director Danny Leiner, writer Sam Catlin and their superb cast nail something essential about how we respond to the instinctual memory of tragedy. We bury it or try to push it elsewhere and get on with our day-to-day. But it doesn't work.

I usually don't go for these small-world-after-all ensemble stories of urban ennui. But The Great New Wonderful struck me as particularly cohesive and profound in its treatment of a city trying to go about its business as if nothing major had happened. The characters are a colorfully disparate lot, and they become easy to care about. And though the story lines barely intersect, they operate under a common cloud.

It's clear that the cast responded to the material; everyone is firing on all cylinders, from the big names (Maggie Gyllenhaal as a high-end cake designer, Tony Shalhoub as a passive-aggressive psychiatrist) to the faces you've seen somewhere before but can't quite place. Great acting is contagious here, running through every scene without a showboat performance in sight.

Among the standouts are: Naseeruddin Shah as an India secret service agent whose sunny disposition belies desires and flaws; David Letterman regular Jim Gaffigan as a WTC survivor who can't seem to reach the grieving point; and Judy Greer as the hapless mother of a monstrous child. Arrested Development fans will happily note the presence of Will "Gob" Arnett, who has a way of turning smugness into an art form.

The Great New Wonderful is only obliquely about 9/11; it doesn't have the direct connections of this year's United 93 and World Trade Center. Yet it may be the 9/11 movie to which the most people can relate. For most of us, that date wasn't about personal heroics or losing loved ones or survival. It was about processing the impossible and realizing that life, with all its ups and downs, must go on.