Mi amigo Ricky

Awesome movie, people. Not the best, but awesome. I saw this movie a while ago so I'll have to rely on what I remember. This movie had a wonderful story. It was very moving, for me, in the way that it showed great character depth. In other words, it showed people as they are, and gave you another perspective on how people see the world and the people who live on it. It showed why people act they way they do, and what you can do to help people. I don't see how anyone, after watching a movie like this one, could not be moved, possibly enough to reach out to someone and help them.

When I see a movie and I see within it a splicing of two or more movies I never know what to expect, even if it is two or more movies I like. "Digging to China" was a combination of good movies and it was also par excellence itself.

"Digging to China" centered around Harriet Frankovitz (Evan Rachel Wood), a 10-year-old girl with a wild imagination, a fascination with the National Enquirer, and desperate to run away from home. It wasn't that her home life was all that bad, she was simply detached from her alcoholic and lethargic mother (Cathy Moriarty) and her promiscuous sister Gwen (Mary Stuart Masterson).

Harriet was delivered a good and needed friend in Ricky Schroth (Kevin Bacon) when his mother's car broke down. Harriet struck a deep yet socially weird friendship with Ricky, a mentally handicapped adult male who operated on the level of a 10-year-old.

First, I want to give props to Timothy Hutton on his first and only directorial job for a feature length movie. You may know him very well as an actor in movies such as: "Taps," "The Falcon and the Snowman," "Q & A," "The Dark Half," and others. I wouldn't say he was a mega-star, but he was well recognized.

Secondly, I love this movie. It is so simple, pure, and touching. Both Wood and Bacon were phenomenal. Their friendship just melts the heart though you know it is not entirely appropriate nor is it sustainable. All you want for them is to enjoy each other's company and comfort each other for the short amount of time they will be together. It was so pure and innocent you couldn't help but be moved.

Director Timothy Hutton together with an ensemble of right on performances turns what could be a weepy tale of friendship between a retarded man and an 11 year old girl into a deeply moving story on the power of love the need for human connection. Evan Rachel Wood is without a false note in her portrayal of Harriet, a little girl who searches for escape from her dreary life into an elaborate and eccentric fantasy world. She is looked at as slightly goofy by her classmates, a spirited handful by her alcoholic 'mother', and a major pain in the butt by her promiscuous older 'sister'. It isn't until Ricky, played by Kevin Bacon, and his mother come to stay at the family's motel cabins, on their way to bringing Ricky to an institution, that Harriet finds a real kindred spirit. After Harriet's 'mother' is killed suddenly in an auto accident (she had a tendency to drive on the wrong side of the highway) a crucial family secret is revealed. The friendship between these two outsiders begins to deepen. Despite the obvious obstacles of age and mental condition each provides a connection which the other needs, a relationship which allows Harriet's imagination to flourish and Ricky to feel valued and fully human for the first time. As the two other women in Harriet's family (who all look surprisingly alike enough to be a family), Cathy Moriarty and Mary Stuart Masterson are beautifully understated in their performances. Despite the problems in lives of these women each is characterized with the same indomitable spirit. We see the same spark in each of their personalities, each at a different stage of defeat and resignation. The struggle for them is not to let life's circumstances defeat them. For Harriet and for Ricky there develops a real love and friendship which is unique and wonderful but, as the title suggests, it is a relationship which is both dangerous and inevitably hopeless. First time director Timothy Hutton brings the same intelligence and thoughtfulness to his directing that he brings to his acting. He has created a great looking film and helped create some marvelous and honest performances. The visual scheme of the film effectively captures many its themes of connection, entrapment, secrecy, and fantasy. His camera also tends to sit low, giving us a child's eye view. He sometimes allows the camera to literally participate in the world through Harriet's imagination. By not burdening us with extraneous details concerning the women's relationships with male characters (except for Ricky) the characters to exist in their own emotional space. The music is artfully chosen. Digging to China captures the struggles of coming of age as well as to make our connections to one another richer and stronger. It is a carefully conceived, powerfully acted, and beautifully directed film. It goes beyond the familiar territory with style and grace. Take the kids and transcend the cynical. This is one of the best films I've seen all year.

Digging to China is an unpretentious little movie. No great moral lessons are promoted here. It plays out within the limited area of a small resort motel, an old barn, the surrounding woods and streams, an elementary school, the connecting highways, a deserted caboose, and a school bus - with brief side trips to a cemetery and a hospital. No profound messages are involved; it doesn't probe the depths of the human condition. It's merely the story of the friendship between ten-year-old Harriet, a bright, imaginative loner, and Ricky, a man with special learning and behavioral handicaps. The relationship grows as each faces a major emotional life adjustment.

For a little movie, Digging to China is loaded with fantastic, deeply affecting, unforgetable images.

Tim Hutton is to be congratulated for putting this simple story together as a, yes, classic movie. Mary Stuart Masterson, quite possibly the most under-rated actress of our time, brings dignity to the evolving character of Gwen, who is determined to learn her new responsibilities. Kevin Bacon reads the part of the hurting Ricky with great sensitivity.

By its nature, the whole movie rides on the tiny shoulders of Evan Rachel Wood, and she carries it flawlessly. She can display a range of emotions many more experienced actors would kill for. In a few short minutes Miss Wood's features can slide subtly from questioning, to hopefully anxious, to happy, to forlorn - a masterpiece of acting.

Sensitive viewers will feel better for seeing it.

Timothy Hutton and the cast of "Digging to China" deserve an "A" for effort and for having their hearts in the right place. Despite some awkward writing and a not entirely successful performance by Kevin Bacon, this film mostly succeeds by making you feel the deep need the characters have to connect with one another. Some scenes feel contrived, but the performances overcome this for the most part. Bacon is OK once you get used to him, but his performance feels a bit studied and overly mannered -- it doesn't flow as naturally as Leonardo DiCaprio's similar performance in "What's Eating Gilbert Grape?"

This movie shares some plotting and themes with "Lawn Dogs" -- in both films an older man befriends a lonely and odd young girl; people misunderstand and violence results -- which to me was a better movie. But "Digging to China" certainly deserves more attention than its gotten. The performance of Evan Rachel Wood as Harriet is one of the most amazing performances by a young actor I've seen in ages.