High-Note Ending, or Higher Ethic?

I can't help but think that New York Times movie reviewer Stephen Holden misses the significance of Bella by, well, by the distance between life and death:

It is not hard to see why "Bella," a saccharine trifle directed by Alejandro Monteverde, won the People's Choice Award at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival. This is a movie that wears its bleeding heart on its sleeve and loves its characters to distraction. Nothing — not even significant plot glitches and inconsistencies — is allowed to get in the way of its bear-hugging embrace of sweetness and light. ...

After she confesses that she is pregnant and planning an abortion, he decides to talk her out of it, helps her find a new job and takes her home to his warm-hearted Latino family on Long Island. ...

If "Bella" (the title doesn't make sense until the last scene) is a mediocre cup of mush, the response to it suggests how desperate some people are for an urban fairy tale with a happy ending, no matter how ludicrous.

On further thought (and I say this admitting that I haven't seen the movie), it could be that Holden does get just what people are desperate for. Perhaps he uses "happy ending" — hardly a finale that Hollywood avoids — as a euphemism for "life-affirming."