This Americanized remake of the French classic The Return of Martin Guerre (1982) transports the story's setting from the 16th century Gallic countryside to 19th century Tennessee at the conclusion of the U.S. Civil War. Richard Gere stars as Jack Sommersby, a wealthy landowner who returns to his small cotton farming town of Vine Hill three years after the Civil War's end. The defeated Confederate soldier is ready to resume his past life with his young wife Laurel (Jodie Foster). Thinking her
husband long dead, however, Laurel has become engaged to Orin Meecham (Bill Pullman), an arrangement she quickly calls off, enraging and embittering Orin. Soon it becomes evident that his experiences have changed Jack thoroughly. A callous and cruel man widely feared before the war, he is now charming and sensitive, offering financial opportunities to an ex-slave and caring for Laurel and his young son. Jack even persuades the town's citizenry that he can rescue their fortunes by pooling resources and switching Vine Hill's chief crop from cotton to tobacco. Jack's scheme works, but Orin becomes increasingly convinced that Jack is in fact an impostor masquerading as the wealthy Sommersby, a suspicion that the smitten and quickly pregnant Laurel secretly shares. When Jack is arrested and charged with a murder he drunkenly committed years before, the court trial leads to some startling revelations about the past. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi
Though there is a near vaccuum at the center of the film, Sommersby is never boring, largely because of Ms. Foster's beautifully self-possessed presence.
A square peg pounded into a round hole -- or, more exactly, a medieval European story that has been unsuccessfully updated to the period of the American Civil War.
It's really an old-fashioned hankie-soaker with Gere and Foster ably jerking tears. An odd yet convincing couple, they won't replace Rhett and Scarlet, and frankly, my dears, who can? But belles wring and bosoms heave in a manner most pleasing.
Lacks whatever magical ingredient there is that makes a film a moving experience and instead settles for being an adequate but not a remarkable achievement.
Unfortunately the whole 'Is he/Isn't he' plot soon gets a little tiring but this is still quite a nice film with some good performances from Gere, Foster and R. Lee Ermey as the unfortunately named Dick Mead. I didn't realise it was a remake, so I'm quite intrigued to see The Return of Martin Guerre.
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