The Trip to Bountiful (1985)

Back in the 1950s, "The Trip to Bountiful" was a very successful stage play. I mention this because the film is a bit slower than many movies and it's easy to imagine it being performed live...much of it because the film has quite a few monologues. This is NOT a complaint....and I really enjoyed the picture...even if it's a bit of a downer at times.When the film begins, Mrs. Watts (Geraldine Page) is living with her adult son (John Heard) and his god-awful wife, Jessie Mae (Carlin Glynn). Jessie Mae is a very controlling and nasty lady and she seems to go out of her way to make Mrs. Watts feel like she isn't wanted. Oddly, she also doesn't necessarily want her to leave, either! In fact, Jessie Mae just seems to like complaining and making everyone miserable. As for her husband, Ludie is a wimp who wants everyone to get along but allows his wife to make the household tense. Within this atmosphere, Mrs. Watts has a strong desire to leave...not permanently, but to visit her old home town of Bountiful. While this seems like a reasonable thing, especially since Mrs. Watts is elderly and has a heart condition, Jessie Mae insists that she is not ALLOWED to make the trip...and that is that! Well, Mrs. Watts knows the only way to make this one last trip is to sneak off on her own...and she does.What follows is a long and leisurely film where Mrs. Watts meets several nice folks...nice folks who take the time to listen to her prattle on and on. It's obvious that no one has been listening to her...and she is making up for lost time! So what happens? See the film.The reason to see this film is the acting. Geraldine Page is delightful and I can see why she earned the Oscar for Best Actress. But I also thought that Carlin Glynn was also terrific. After all, I really, really wanted to throttle her...and she and the director did a great job in creating a strong emotional reaction in viewers. A nice character study and a film that might just make you shed a few tears...so have some Kleenex handy.

I am somewhat ashamed it took me 30 years to see this film. That's when it first hit movie screens-- back in late 1985. Honestly, in those days, I think I was more into the "big" films like BACK TO THE FUTURE; AMADEUS; and PRIZZI'S HONOR. So this character-driven movie was one that had crossed my radar but it wasn't something I felt compelled to see. At least not until last night.I found it on Hulu about a week ago. And I said to myself, "That's right, I have never watched __________. Let's add it to my queue, and one rainy day I will get around to seeing it." Well, it didn't rain last night...and there it was on the queue in front of me. I paused, then finally clicked 'play' and voila. I will be completely honest here. I loved the opening credit sequence, but as soon as the music stopped and the first scene began, I didn't like it at all. It was very stage-bound, at least in the beginning. After three minutes, I almost turned it off. The remote was in my hand, and my fingers were itchy. Change it. Turn it off. Find something else, the remote seemed to be saying. My remote control speaks to me sometimes.I almost did not have patience for this film. But maybe I got lazy or my itchy trigger finger on the remote calmed down, I do not know for sure. But a few minutes later, the lead actress had captured me. It was the way she sat in that chair. I can't explain it. It was a moment when the performer just totally gave herself over to the role. And the character came to life and I was drawn in...I had to see how this was going to continue playing out for the next 100 minutes. And so it went, and I remained glued to the screen. And this wound up being the best film (certainly the best performance by an actress) I had seen in a long time. And thirty years is too long a time to have deprived myself of it. It didn't matter if parts were stage-bound-- we were on a journey, this character and me. This actress and me. And we took a trip together.To Bountiful.

This is acting legend Geraldine Page's final Oscar-winning performance at the age of 61, after harvesting eight nominations during her renowned silver-screen career, and she passed away two years later in 1987. So Ms. Close, don't give up your hope yet, please live long and prosper.THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL is an adaptation of Horton Foote's eponymous play, sets in Houston in 1940s, Mrs. Watts (Page) lives with her son Ludie (Heard) and his wife Jessie Mae (Glynn) in a two-room apartment, for almost two decades, Mrs. Matts tries to visit her hometown, Bountiful, an obsolete town being forgotten by any train or bus schedule, for the last time, however, Ludie and Jessie Mae can always pre-empt her plan in the past years, this time, after a sleepless night and the quotidian spat with Jessie Mae, plus a sinking spell may indicate that she has some heart problem, Ms. Watts ramps up all the courage and she must go back to Bountiful on her own, with the pension check she smartly concealed from Jessie Mae.Luck is also on her side, finally, she dodges Ludie and Jessie Mae's search in the bus station and befriends with her fellow passenger Thelma (De Mornay), a young married girl whose husband is dispatched to the war zone, on the bus to the nearest town from Bountiful. A quasi mother-daughter bond builds tenderly while they confide their stories en route. When Thelma leaves for her destination, Mrs. Watts stays over in the local station until the Sheriff (Bradford) arrives to inform her that Ludie will fetch her up at the morning. Out of despair, Ms. Watts plead the Sheriff to drive her to Bountiful, allow her to see her old house for the last time before Ludie arrives.This is a featherweight indie picture, with a handful of actors, spanning merely two nights and two days, Page's Mrs. Watts is always in the centre of the story, she is a country girl in spirit, crammed in a small apartment and crashes with an ultra-selfish Jessie Mae in every possible way (the hymn, the pout and the gait), as she pointedly confesses to Thelma - when you have a son, when he marries, you lose a son, but if you have a daughter, when she marries, you get a son! She is too benign to defy Jessie Mae since Ludie is a weak- minded man, a mother's self-sacrifice is inbuilt, her longing for the land where raises her is the only getaway from a grating reality. Ms. Page pitches at every note of emotions precisely in her warm and endearing performance, looks rather older than her real age, she doesn't possess any idiosyncrasy or appeal to be a figure under the spotlight, Mrs. Watts is such an ordinary old woman one can meet everyday and pay no attention of, but thanks to Foote's very personal and unostentatious script, her mere dream is amplified into a universally affecting pursuit of fulfilment, particularly edifying for us, as our parents are in the same range of Mrs. Watts, homesick, nostalgia and past memories become all they have in the world. In retrospect, it is rather astonishing to realise from Houston to Bountiful it only takes more or less 10-12 hours by driving, how come Ludie never brings his mother to visit for once is quite baffling, he is not that callous kind. John Heard's acting is not at the same clique as Page's not only because Ludie is a pretty dislikable character in default, his only great moment is his big confession scene, otherwise, he is a bland actor. Carlin Glynn's Jessie Mae, on the other hand, excruciatingly hammy, but frankly speaking, Glynn saves the day by injecting a patina of self-awareness which underlines maybe Jessie Mae is not a complete damaged good, she is an egocentric virago for sure, but she is not the evil kind, she is not entirely hostile towards Mrs. Watts, her life is also stuck in a stifled status quo, sometimes we stupidly and unintentionally discharge our dissatisfaction towards those who are near us, it's just human nature, no misogynous overtone is agitated. In a word, THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL is Ms. Page's showpiece to the hilt, a star-making device aiming for that golden statue and it succeeds, but you could say it is a fair play, and in 2014 a TV remake with a core black cast with Cicely Tyson, Vanessa Williams and Blair Underwood, verifies that this old yarn is still relevant nowadays.

The Trip To Bountiful is an unexpectedly interesting piece of drama genuinely portraying the battle of the age groups. Geraldine Page masterfully plays an old woman who is determined to outwit her bossy daughter-in-law so that she can visit her childhood home. Her portrait of this elder is a fusion of desperation, wisdom, and all but emotion being diluted by time. There is a lot of shrewd spontaneity in her performance that challenges her co-stars. Carlin Glynn provokingly takes the part of the imposition of the succeeding generation, an interfering, self-consumed woman Page puts up with only for the sake of her son, Glynn's broodingly compliant husband, played by a very likable young John Heard.The script is exceptional in its unfussiness, as all the narrative obstructions to Page's fraught yearning to replenish herself with a nostalgic visit to her old home of Bountiful don't seem to phase her. This is a touching recognition of the seasoned nature of many elderly people, as Page, despite how miserable it must be to be intimidated by someone thirty years younger than you into remaining in their apartment passing away the time in a chair and a window, for the most part alone, as we first see her in the film, and to reminisce about the bygone times and lost relatives, is beyond the sort of anger and frustration that would set a younger person in a rut. This, however, is merely my twenty-year-old male opinion, though I would say that is a testament to the effect of the movie.Beautiful Rebecca DeMornay creates a wonderful character, a sensitive young woman who meets Page by happenstance and projects a wonderfully virginal, serene presence. She opens Page up, just as Richard Bradford's humble, taurine middle-aged sheriff does. The Trip To Bountiful is not a brilliant film. It's simply an enjoyable and engrossing piece of work.