Better than I remembered this to be from first seeing it 30 years ago, this is a touching adult drama of love and pain and prejudice and a South that hadn't quite grown up from a century before. It's a combination of the type of stories that Horton Foote and William Inge used to write, with a bit of Tennessee Williams and Harper Lee, even a bit of John Grisham. It's a tale of the attempts of white supremacy to keep a bequest of land from remaining the property of the aging Beah Richards, once the lover of a powerful white man, faced with the revealing of secrets that could rock this proud old white culture, threatened with a truth that could destroy it.
While the leads are Scott Glenn as the attorney who volunteers to represent Richards in court appreciation to a friend Jamie Lee Curtis, the niece of the deceased bequestor. Betty Davis, still recovering from a stroke she had several years before, is the dead man's sister who knows the secret and risk-prone health to reveal the truth. there are a lot of powerful emotions explored in this film and the performances are all incredible, but it is Richards who will steal your heart. Penny Fuller, ironically Eve in "Applause!" (the musical version of "All About Eve"), plays Davis's uppity niece, revealing a prejudiced so vile that you want to reach through the screen and strangle her.
John Randolph is superb as the attorney out to beat Glenn, giving subtle innuendos that he hates the case he's forced to be involved in but has no choice because of his own prejudices and southern tradition. I don't know how accurate fights like this were as a rule in the post depression-era South, but if anything, it's a reminder of hope that the hatreds imbedded through prejudice can be eradicated completely.
While the leads are Scott Glenn as the attorney who volunteers to represent Richards in court appreciation to a friend Jamie Lee Curtis, the niece of the deceased bequestor. Betty Davis, still recovering from a stroke she had several years before, is the dead man's sister who knows the secret and risk-prone health to reveal the truth. there are a lot of powerful emotions explored in this film and the performances are all incredible, but it is Richards who will steal your heart. Penny Fuller, ironically Eve in "Applause!" (the musical version of "All About Eve"), plays Davis's uppity niece, revealing a prejudiced so vile that you want to reach through the screen and strangle her.
John Randolph is superb as the attorney out to beat Glenn, giving subtle innuendos that he hates the case he's forced to be involved in but has no choice because of his own prejudices and southern tradition. I don't know how accurate fights like this were as a rule in the post depression-era South, but if anything, it's a reminder of hope that the hatreds imbedded through prejudice can be eradicated completely.