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Just rent this
by Susan (movies profile)
Apr 9, 2008
3
of
3 people found this review helpful
Geraldine Page is exquisite -- she is alternately grumpy, fiesty, heart-breaking, self-pitying, and by golly, even coquettish. Her work in this film is amazing. She is the perfect vehicle for Horton Foote's delicate, simple script. Foote is the king of minutae, and Page revels in it. Whether it's her girlish, near-flirting hand gesture to a Greyhound bus ticket seller or the quiet but delighted way she eats half a sandwich, her performance is full of beautiful, tiny moments that would be ignored by other actors -- or, I think, writers.
John Heard plays her somewhat weak-willed son. He tries hard to keep peace between his wife and mother -- he really tries. But he's not entirely successful. And neither are most of us as we manuever through the landmines of family and extended family. I think that's the beauty of the script and the performances. They never let themselves sink into the mire of sentimentality.
Geraldine Page's character sometimes seems surprised by the fact that she's an old widow who is nearing death. John Heard can't quite figure out why he doesn't have a house and children and the seeming happiness and contentment of his co-worker. And some of us still find ourselves surprised to be in our mid-30s and wonder where our youth went.
Ultimately, this is a film about growing old, about losing that part of yourself that used to look at the world with complete optimism. And yet it doesn't offer cynicism in the place of opitmism. It offers... truth. And maybe the truth isn't so bad. |
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