Starring AnnaSophia Robb, Jeff Daniels, Dave Matthews, and Eva Marie Saint. Rated general.

Not everyone enjoys the taste of sorrow mixed in with their sweetness. It's an unusual combination, to be sure--metaphysical, even--and the secret behind the Littmus Lozenge candies that once made Naomi, Florida, famous. But by the time 10-year-old Opal lands in town, the Littmus factory has long been boarded up. The townsfolk have forgotten that strange flavour, just as they've forgotten how to share their sorrows and their joys.

Opal, played with pixieish Tatum O'Neal charm by newcomer AnnaSophia Robb, knows a thing or two about sorrow. Abandoned by her mother at three, Opal has moved through a string of towns with her preacher father (a jowly Jeff Daniels). By the time we pick up the story (based faithfully on Kate DiCamillo's best-selling children's novel), Opal is lonely and heartsick, in need of a friend.

"Just about everything good that happened that summer happened because of Winn-Dixie," Opal says in voice-over as the film begins. And it's true that Winn-Dixie, a shaggy horse of a dog with a winsome smile, does prod Opal to meet and befriend a number of the town's more eccentric denizens, including a scatty reformed drunk (Cicely Tyson) and a washed-out librarian (Eva Marie Saint). It's Otis, the part-time help at the pet store, though, who really brings Opal to life, and no one was more surprised than I to see Dave Matthews pull off an autistic-songwriter turn with such grace.

In fact, there's not a bum note in this whole film, a poignant, well-soundtracked meditation on loneliness and loss despite its frequent comic sections. Robb shows consistent dignity as our heroine, shining with her blond bob among all the town's rundown, dusty facades. (Cinematographer Karl Walter Lindenlaub, who lensed director Wayne Wang's Maid in Manhattan, burnishes every blade of grass.) It's rare for a children's movie to show such humanity and such style; I highly recommend Because of Winn-Dixie as a result.