Alan Johnson (Don Cheadle) is a quintessential NYC success story. Okay, he's a dentist, but everything else screams great life. He has a gorgeous, intelligent wife (Jada Pinkett Smith) and adorable, well-mannered kids, a to-die-for Manhattan apartment and even mindblowingly beautiful patients who want to seduce him for no apparent reason. (I mean, he's a dentist.)

But Alan isn't completely happy with his life. He feels constricted, both at work and at home. He even wants to see a shrink (Liv Tyler), but he can't quite get himself through the door. Alan's a man, it seems, on the verge of midlife crisis.

One day while stuck in midtown traffic, Alan spots his old college roommate. He and Charlie Fineman (Adam Sandler) attended dental school together but gradually lost touch over the years. Alan's aware that Charlie's had a rough time recently, but when Alan greets his old buddy, he's shocked to discover Charlie doesn't remember him. Nor, it seems, does Charlie want to remember him.

And so begins "Reign Over Me," a surprisingly (it's an Adam Sandler film, after all) articulate, mature and touching film about finding oneself despite the obstacles. For Sandler the Adolescent Buffoon fans, "Reign Over Me" may be a big disappointment. For others, it's as sensitive a portrayal of love and loss as I've seen in a while.

The film may astound the actor's fans as well as his detractors. It moves yet another comic-wannabe-serious star (e.g., Jim Carrey, Will Ferrell) into the ranks of the serious star category. For those of us who've shed our adolescent brain cells, this is by far the best Sandler film to date. Yes, he's funny when he needs to be, but there's a great deal in "Reign Over Me" that's far from joyous. Sandler allows those moments to occur with dignified aplomb.

Charlie Fineman's wife and three daughters died several years ago in a plane crash, a disaster that changed both America and the world. And while "Reign Over Me" isn't a film about 9/11, it does peek through the veiled façade of that day.

For those of us who weren't ready to see "United 93" or "World Trade Center," "Reign Over Me" may be a safe way to venture back to the theater. One feels that writer/director Mike Binder is considerate to those folks in the same way he's sensitive to Alan and Charlie. These are two people in pain- one slightly wounded by normal everyday things and one horribly damaged by the scope of a tragedy unthinkable to most of us.

Few recent "dramadies"- those often treacly message flicks that attempt to merge humor and pathos in the same breath- have succeeded, in my opinion. "Garden State" and "The Upside of Anger" managed to do so. "Broken Flowers," "Lost in Translation" and, sorry, Bill, "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" did not.

However, "Reign Over Me" finds that near-perfect balance and drowns neither in overt melodrama nor insensitive farce. Charlie Fineman is not a well man, but he's an unwell man with an odd sense of humor. He finds solace in his old roommate because Alan represents Charlie's life before tragedy struck.

Charlie collects old records, living in a past where his shredded psyche remains safe. He remodels and then unremodels his kitchen- because his wife wanted a new kitchen- and then remodels again, a constant loop that he finds reassuring. With the project forever unfinished, it's as if his wife and children are somehow still alive.

In Charlie's brain, it's enough.

And then, impossibly, Alan becomes Charlie's friend. For the last six years, Charlie's remained friendless, all but closed off to humanity- one of those ubiquitous crazy people wandering the streets with no apparent purpose. But despite Charlie's behavior, Alan realizes that in order to ease his own inner turmoil, he, too, needs this friendship.