Esperanza de seda

Farrah's knocking on 52 in this movie and the soft focus length can't deny more nips and tucks in her boatrace than a cornish pastie.

The "gentle and pleasant" plot is torn apart by the fact that having been told her mum had up to six months to live, this lovable rogue like doll disappears and comes back six months to the day and is flummoxed when her mum had kicked the bucket three days previously!! We are supposed to sympahise with the dim witted dolly when her sister and brother in law to be want to sell their share of the property to try to make something of their lives. Given that Farrah has to appear the holly golightly that she ain't, they have to act with a perfomance not equalled for woodeness since pinnochio was last done. However, our dim witted dolly disagrees to the house sale and agrees to pack underwear at the local mill to make up her share of the 200 grand owing to buy them out!!! The subplot is that she is searching for her long lost dad who did a bunk years back and who can blame him and in a move resplendent of one of charlie's aunts..sorry angels, she drops notes in the gigantic drawers that she packs for your average 26 stone american lving in North Carolina....given that she only packed one on twenty pairs, she got extremely lucky when she got a reply from his ex missus!! Things then get worse or funnier, the foreman at the mill, looking every bit of the 15 years her junior he is, falls for her exclaiming he remembers going to her family farm at the age of 12 and being shy of her " you'd have been 14 at the time!!!" well I've heard of flattery gets you everywhere but thats taking the mickey, she'd have been forty at least...then comedy turns to farce when our hero loses his arm in the mill machinery ( reminded me of the "the mangle" ) and the following scenes are shot with his arm clearly either "hidden" up his back or consumed as a beer belly in his baggy shirt he begins wearing following the accident. Pure pantomime! Of course they raise the money with his compensation money paid in a fortnight and as he looks in to her puffed up 50 something eyes, he keeps a straight face when he declares he wants to marry her and for her to have his children, children in the plural as if medicine is miraculous or his compensation enough to reverse her menopause! Cruel comments maybe, but pure farce and a real laugh on a wet saturday, " silk dope!"

Lawrence Naumoff's book turned into a sketchy, meandering TV-vehicle for star Farrah Fawcett, playing a ne'er-do-well good-time girl who pops into her rural hometown only to find she's missed her beloved mama's funeral and that her sister is planning to sell off the old homestead. She decides to work at the local factory and buy sis out, and catches the eye of the hunky foreman (who looks like a clean-shaven Kris Kristofferson in his youth). Up to this point, "Silk Hope" has some drive and a rousing character in Fawcett's Frannie; but, though the dialogue is smart and has a truthful edge, the plot manages to get all balled up. Frannie is supposed to be flighty and irrational, but how she thinks making pocket change at the factory (or starting a pig farm) will help her win back the house is never explained. When Farrah digs deep as an actress, she's more than capable of bringing out a forthright woman who doesn't take baloney from anybody; however, she slips too often here into a little girl act (with a light, tinkly voice). In her quieter moments, the actress is very good, and very attractive (if rail-thin); she's really the only reason to watch the movie. The bumpy narrative darts about from one half-finished sequence to the next, including the proverbial county fair, the emergency at the factory, a crisis in the family, a hunt for Daddy who's been missing for ages, and Frannie standing up to her bosses at work as if she were Eleanor Roosevelt. It just doesn't wash, but then it probably wasn't meant to be an incisive, dramatic entertainment...just a piece of fluff.

I saw this movie when it debuted on CBS right away. The acting was decent and the plot was standable. What really got me was the setting. It is (suppost to be) set in the REAL town of Silk Hope, NC. This town is not a big area and has a lot of farms. There is NO town mill, has depicted in the movie. On top of that, Farrah Fawcett has well as non of the other actors had a true central NC accent. I wish and will as a future filmmaker learn what these people didn't. RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH!

Farrah Fawcett has spent the better part of her post-Angel's career confounding us, with an occasional noteworthy acting performance sandwiched in between her Playboy frolics and Letterman escapades. But when it comes down to it, there's no denying that this girl can act. Far from a story of epic proportions, this well-done TV-movie is gentle, quiet and occasionally moving. Fawcett plays the wayward black sheep daughter come home only to find that she missed the last days of her mom's life as well as the funeral, much to the chagrin of her more stable and presumably more sensible sister. Brad Johnson plays the love interest, and a story unfolds with all the typical elements of telefilm drama- but then there's always that confounding Farrah to watch, and she does, indeed, remain eminently watchable. (And, yes, I admit it, I did have that Farrah poster on my wall way back when). Silk Hope gets three and a half stars (out of five) on the Corkymeter. Bosley would be proud.

If you love Farrah faucet then you'll enjoy this movie. It's just an all around good TV movie!