The Trip to Bountiful Details

[Highly rated reviewer]

A wee gem!

I must confess that learning from the 'extras' section on the DVD that this is one of America's great stage plays, I'd never heard of it before reading the details in the Radio

Times film guide.

Not much really happens except some people 'find themselves'. In the extra notes about how it was made someone says that in Chekhov plays, its what

is not said that is important. So it is with this movie and I can think of no higher accolade than to compare it with a Chekhov play!

Certainly it was slow and the film version very much like a stage play at first. I kept on being reminded of Tennessee William's plays or even 'Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?'

The script showed great touches of humour mixed with sadness.

The acting by all was superb and the direction and the lighting excellent. The settings in the latter part of the movie reminded me of paintings by Andrew Wyeth.

However, the best part of the movie is a fantastic piece of acting by Geraldine Paige. She really makes you feel for the sad, lonely lady who has to live with her son and his bitchy wife - she certainly deserved her Oscar.

If you like 'road movies' about the older generation looking for their lost youth or reliving their past and coming to terms with their present, then this is for you. Do borrow it if you like classy, intelligent, affecting and enjoyable dramas with fine acting which make you think

Why was this made?

Horton Foote, who wrote 'Tender Mercies' obviously had another film ready to go and some nob let him make it. Granny Stereotype wants to see her childhood farm in rural Bountiful.(Oh shall thee chuckle when you see the irony of a town called Bountiful) I don't mind the idea of a journey home, actually it is a wonderful idea. But why drag honest folk over the bloody coals for little else? Granny boards a bus and has the middle of the movie to get to know a woman who's husband has recently 'gone off to war'. This thread withers and dies and made me want to travel to the house myself and rip it down by hand. Granny Dullstuff sings hymns with the voice of a bird you want to slingshot to Hell. 'Where is God on all those other days' Shut up Gran you're dribbling again. Her son hires a car and drives to rescue her, his wife comes along to further annoy Granny. The wife is incredibly annoying and her death would have put me back on the side of the family who did nothing never.