I found this movie a bit annoying the first time. Fortunately, I saw it again. It has grown with every viewing. Now, it is Butler index material.
A youngish couple live in a small apartment, and they have taken on the husband’s mother as well. The tension between the two women accounts for the pain. But it is also the foil for the desperate desire to go back home. The apparent inability of the couple to have children adds more color to the theme: if the future is cut off, the past comes into brighter focus. We need to go home. But we can’t go home.
The tension is thoroughly understandable from both points of view, like a Greek tragedy.
The characters are hauntingly Southern. There is a kindness and a gentleness even among officials that must do their duty, culminating in the role played by Richard Bradford. Even Jessie Mae, remember, for all her rancor, has not taken the Yankee route of packing the elderly off to a home. In fact it seems to me that she has genuine fear for the safety of the mother-in-law, despite appearances to the contrary.
The beautiful musical treatment of the Baptist hymn “Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling” is, very possibly, the element that makes the movie so devastating. The past/future dilemma of the movie is taken up eschatologically.
Geraldine Page deservedly won an Oscar for this performance. A surprise Act 2 appearance of lovely Rebecca de Mornay is a bonus. Carlin Glynn’s Jessie Mae gets under your skin like a needle– which is a sign of good acting I think. John Heard holds up valiantly as the man caught between wife and mother.
Don’t even bother renting this one; go right ahead and buy it. By the second or third viewing, don’t forget to have the box of hankies near by.
There is an unfortunate and needless taking the Lord’s name, of all things by the minor role of a station-master. It needs to be edited out.
This is a good movie. I’ve only seen it once but will watch again as I will surely get more out of it now that I’ve read your pithy review.
WARNING: THIS COMMENT CONTAINS SPOILERS
Yes, a wonderful movie.
The sheriff, Richard Bradford as you mentioned, plays a small but significant role in the film. His duty is to make sure Mrs. Watts gets picked up by her son, Ludie. But since there is some time before Ludie arrives he drives her out to Bountiful, her hometown. His simple grace and gentle demeanor capture so much of was is lost and almost forgotten in the South. In the Yankee value system, his time would have been better spent doing something “productive.” But in the Old South, or in this case the vestiges of the Old South, time was not considered a commodity.
Andrew Nelson Lytle summerizes the agrarian value system of Old Dixie:
“[T]he farmer knows that he cannot control time, whereas he can wrestle with space, or at least with that particular part which is his orbit. He can stop, set, chaw, and talk, for, unable to subdue nature, it is no great matter whether he gets a little more or a little less that year from her limitless store. He has the choice of pleasant conversation, the excitement of hunting, fishing, hearing the hounds run, or of the possibility of accumulating greater spoils.”
In the case of the sheriff, he chooses the simple kindess of helping a stranger get back to her childhood home where she can relive her life, her joys, her sorrows, her regrets.
The sheriff had a choice between “productivity” and kindness. Given these alternatives he told “productivity” to go to the devil. Let us follow his example.
The previous reviewer said, “In the Yankee value system, his time would have been better spent doing something ‘productive.’” I resent this statement. The reviewer MRB knows nothing of her so-called “Yankee Value System.” I grew up 30 miles from the Canadian border and my father was a true gentleman as were the fathers of my childhood friends. This falacy about southern gentlemen being graceful and gentle is ridiculous. It’s the same falacy as the “Southern Belle” syndrome where southern women are supposed to be the epitomy of true femininity. Men and women are the same everywhere. Some are good, some are bad. Most are average. The “Trip to Bountiful” is about people, not about “the south.” Miss Page’s character reminds me of my great-auntie who was treated with the utmost respect in my northern family, so unlike Miss Page’s character’s southern movie family.
Amanda – I meant no insult to your father or your friends’ fathers. My comment was a generalization about regional differences. And although I did not say anything about Southern gentlemen, I do not, in fact, think there is anything ridiculous about the notion that men from the South tend to be more genteel than their Yankee counterparts (esp. antebellum).
“Men and women are the same everywhere.” This statement needs to be unpacked. If you mean that we are all fallen sons and daughters of Adam, then, of course, you are correct. But if you mean that all cultures produce similar men, you are not. This is obvious in such cases as dress, language, and food preferences. But more than this, some cultures tend to produce better men than others. Cultures that have for many generations been saturated with reformed Christianity produce better men, by and large, than those that have not. To deny this is to deny that Christianity has any effect on how men lead their lives.
I maintain that the South was (and to some degree still is) a more Christian culture than the North and, thus, tended to produce better men. Are there exceptions? Most certainly. Your father, for example. And there are plenty of cases of the southern opportunist.
You may demur, but let’s at least get clear on the thesis.
And I am sorry that you resent my comment. My statements may be controversial, but they are not intended to be offensive.
A northern black family can experience the same feelings, the same highs and lows, the same happinesses and regrets in life as you southern white gentlemen and belles. And – I never said anything about Christianity. I do know this about your Southern Christianity: the Southern Baptist Convention did not renounce slavery until 1995.
I never demur. And I don’t believe Southern Christians are more ‘Christian’ than those from elsewhere. The South has produced no more “better” men than the North or East or West has produced. A person from the South/North is not more likely to save his or her buddy during a battle in Iraq than a person from the North/South. We die for each other there every day. Believe me I know. Wake up and stop living in your little Southern antebellum world.
I’m done. Talk all you want now.
Probably not the best example for Amanda to prove her point. The story using a Northern Black family would likely have a much more “Southern” feel to it than using a Northern White family.
Amanda – I would like to have continued the discussion with you. It shows a want of gentility to end things the way you do. But your behavior does illustrate my point about the Yankee value system.
I will try to interpret Amanda’s henid.
First, the story is Southern in point of fact. Just like The Scarlet Letter is Yankee in point of fact. Let’s not forget the “thing.”
Every worthwhile story is concrete. I once read a story with characters named Boy, Dog, etc. and it was just annoying.
Yet the same stories also exemplify universally human problems and characteristics; otherwise, they would not be about humans.
As Francis Schaeffer pointed out, Don Juan wanted to find Woman by knowing many women; but one can only discover the riches of Woman by sticking with a woman.
Cultures do develop characteristic traits. This means, individuals grow into expressions that have features influenced by those around them, so that group traits can be spoken of without denying individuality.
So, the story is characteristically Southern in many ways. This doesn’t mean that strands and themes are not also present elsewhere; but it’s also hard to imagine the exact sequence and script “working” in New England.
We could have debated whether I was fair in generalizing that packing off to an old folks’ home is typically Yankee. Though I think it is fair as a generalization, it is only that; it does not apply to each individual in either region.
There is much that is admirable about the Yankee in his finest form: the tidiness, the diligence, the earnestness, the properness, the reserve in personal interaction. We will celebrate stories that bring those out as well.
Amanda might have asked where we were from before going on about belles and gentlemen. That not-asked is one mark of a Yankee. The answer, if the question had been asked, would have marked another irony of her whole approach.
I had watched this movie many times growing up, my father loved it. It’s a great movie, and now that I am far away from my own family, it reminds me how important it is to remember where you came from.
Loved this movie…
Being originally from the south (Mississippi),this movie really took me back to my roots…Loved the hymn and Mz.Paige was wonderful in her part…Very real and tho it made me sad,I really enjoyed this movie..one I will watch over and over I am sure…
Alright, I purchased this without renting. (Although I got it really cheap off Amazon.)
I recently watched African Queen as well, and really loved it.