Directed by Peter Masterson, the film is based on a play by Horton Foote. Basically, Carrie Watts (Geraldine Page) is living in a tiny apartment with her son and bitchy daughter in law. You can see that her life is nearing its end, and more than anything, she wants to revisit the tiny Texas town where she's from, called Bountiful. Of course, the catch is that there isn't any Bountiful anymore. The whole film is basically Carrie trying to get to this town, and along the way she meets this young woman on a bus named Thelma (Rebecca De Mornay) who is just starting out in life. While the two women are talking, we learn that Thelma is happy to be in love with her husband, while Mrs. Watts never loved her husband, and was forced to break off a relationship with the only man she ever loved.
The film poster I remember as a child...
While all this might sound like "trite chick talk" (they also discuss other things) the dialogue is incredibly realistic and powerful, because Carrie isn't someone who has lived an easy life. She's poor, she had a somewhat rough upbringing, two of her children have died, and she is forced to live with her bratty daughter in law (Jessie May) who only picks on her.
All Mrs. Watts wants is to actually revisit Bountiful, though when she gets there, nothing remains but condemned buildings. The film is powerful because unlike in some Hollywood flick, there are no flashback scenes to her earlier days--all is told via dialogue. There is also not any excessively sentimental music or forced sappy moments.
Page of course gave a great performance in Woody Allen's Interiors as the cold, unfeeling Eve. She is the sign of a truly great actress because I couldn't even tell this was she. Page won the Oscar that year and it was well deserved--she carried this film, and once again it is proof that with a great screenplay, one can obtain a great film.
I can't recommend this enough. I'd also like to add that much of the strength in this film lies in what is NOT said among the characters--you know their relationships, and that Carrie is nearing the end of her life. The film serves as a metaphor for life, death, and and all those things in between--like remembrance.
Here is the original 1985 trailer:
