Sacrifices of the Heart

Excellent film with Melissa Gilbert giving a wonderful performance as a young girl, a successful lawyer, who returns to her father's farm, when her brother informs her that there is something wrong with her father.

When she returns, she is confronted with her past-finding her mother dead from carbon monoxide poisoning. The film nicely attempts to deal with the adverse affects of depression.

I was surprised that the brother was startled to hear the diagnosis of the father's problem as Alzheimer's since the movie did a very good job of showing the usual symptoms associated with the illness.

The Gilbert character is called away from a case where a young girl abandoned her baby. Gilbert immediately suspects incest upon the stepfather with the girl, but the latter refuses to open up. Tragic consequences follow this part of the story.

Ken Howard gives an excellent supporting performance as the stricken father, but the entire cast is excellent, especially Gilbert's brother, the girl who was raped, as well as her mother.

An excellent film dealing with human relations and the power of forgiveness.

A skilled and successful lawyer who defends downtrodden people in her practice is the product of a rural farming family that was torn apart by a terrible tragedy when she was a child. Melissa Gilbert plays this lead role with sensitivity and conviction (as well as her depression-ridden mother in flashback sequences).

Two basic themes are woven together in the various elements of the story: how mental/emotional illnesses can rip the fiber of a family; and how difficult, but essential, reconciliation between loved ones can be. The merging of the two parallel story lines is accomplished well, thanks to a cast that uniformly give fine performances. Ken Howard, as the lawyer's father being afflicted with the early stages of Alzheimer's, gives his role a particularly sympathetic and touching approach.

The film is neither overly schmaltzy nor exploitive. It makes the characters very real and believable, not exaggerated. There is appropriate conflict, and it is shown with conscience. A worth-while film.

Melissa Gilbert portrays a successful lawyer who has distanced herself from her Father and Brother in adulthood, following the tragic suicide of her mother when she was a young girl.She found her Mother had gassed herself in the family car.

Growing up we are presented with a woman who had blocked out many memories of her Mother,and subsequently,felt anger within herself.

After 2 years of absence from her family the Brother rings her to say he's worried about their Fathers well-being,unfortunately,the onset of alzheimer's disease.

The film explores her new relationship with her family and in the end getting rid of her demons in coming to terms of her Mother's death.The film also See's her deal with a criminal case of a teenager that unfolds to tragedies that make her re-evaluate her life.

Mellisa gives a sturdy but distant performance in relation to the other actors.Melissa's gorgeous red buxom hair is as always, a joy to see....and she's never lost that way of running around, that you instantly recognise as 'halfpint' in little house!

Not as good as 'Thicker than water' she made a few years ago,but well worth an afternoons tele viewing.