Norman Jewison directed this subdued character study of the effect of the Vietnam War on a small-town Kentucky family -- based on the novel by Bobbi Ann Mason. The film centers upon 17-year-old Samantha (Emily Lloyd) who lives in Hopewell, Kentucky with her Uncle Emmett (Bruce Willis), a quiet, laid-back veteran of Vietnam suffering from post-traumatic stress. Samantha's father was killed in Vietnam when he was 19-years-old (almost her age now), and her mother Irene (Joan Allen) has remarried.
Samantha finds some old photographs of her father, and she becomes obsessed with finding out more about him. Irene, who has moved to Lexington with her second husband, wants Samantha to move in with them and go to college. But Samantha would rather stay with Uncle Emmett and try to find out more about her father. Her mother is no help, as she tells Samantha, "Honey, I married him four weeks before he left for the war. He was 19. I hardly even remember him." Finally Samantha, Emmett and her grandmother (Peggy Rea) go to visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. Finding her father's name in the memorial releases cathartic emotions in Samantha and her family. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
With uncanny skill, Willis finds the frightened kid hiding behind Emmett's detached stare. He gives a dynamite performance, both touching and haunting.
The movie is like a time bomb. You sit there, interested, absorbed, sometimes amused, sometimes moved, but wondering in the back of your mind what all of this is going to add up to. Then you find out.
Though Bruce Willis has top billing as a troubled Vietnam veteran, British whizbang Emily Lloyd virtually squeezes him off the screen as his live-in niece, whose soldier father died before she was born.
Lloyd, though technically adept, doesn't really get under her conflicted character's skin; the supporting actors (including Willis) are the film's greatest strength.
It is refreshing to see the bluster Willis shows as a leading man disappear when he takes smaller challenging roles such as this. Someday, a role like this could lead to more recognition of his immense acting ability.
Bruce Willis got the horros of the after shock of this war down to a tee.I should know i have uncels who have been there and back.
March 6, 2008
Doris Sisler
Watched this movie recently. great movie for Memorial Day. Bruce Willis is outstanding. I cried like a baby at the end. For all those Viet Nam Vets. Thank you for your sacrifice. This was my generations war. It was awful for the soldiers and for the people back home who didn't support the war. Watch this on Memorial
Day Instead of Saving Private Ryan
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