Mémoires du Texas

After many tries, Geraldine Page finally won the Oscar that had eluded her for years. As Carrie Watts, she delivered a near perfect performance and on Academy Award night walked off with the coveted prize.

Earlier, she had stunned the world with her brilliant acting in Tennessee Williams' "Sweet Bird of Youth" with Paul Newman. But 1962 was ripe with excellent female nominees including Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn and the winner that year, Anne Bancroft.

"The Trip to Bountiful" was a small, intimate film about an unhappy, elderly woman who yearns to visit her girlhood home before she dies. She has tried, unsuccessfully several times before, but was stopped by her loving son and disapproving daughter-in-law, skilfully played by Carlin Glynn as "Jessie Mae".

Once on the bus to Bountiful, Mrs. Watts meets a lovely young girl played by Rebecca De Mornay in whom she confides. Miss Page was wonderful here with every nuance, side glance and gesture. Her years of experience as a stage and film actress showed loud and clear. She was brilliant. This prompted actress, Shelley Winters to comment, "this is one of the greatest performances I've ever seen".

Scene after scene, Geraldine Page, does what few actresses can do, breathe REAL LIFE into a character. Her physical aliments and limitations are not exagerrated, but felt. Her emotional highs and lows speak volumes and you find yourself sharing her inner feelings.

Carlin Glynn deserved a nomination as Best Supporting Actress. But, I suppose the Academy members were so enthralled with Miss Page, they couldn't SEE anyone else on the screen!

The supporting cast was strong. I especially liked Richard Bradford as the Sheriff who personally takes Mrs. Watts on her "trip to Bountiful". The scene where Page peers at her old home and says "I can almost see my father walk out of this house..." was heartbreaking. Writer, Horton Foote, was obviously writing from experience and director, Peter Masterson showed compassion and respect for the script and for his actors.

Do NOT miss this one.

I remember first watching this movie as a teenager and how it captivated me with it's simplicity and charm. Only a handful of movies have stuck with me like this one has. Geraldine Page's performance was so incredible and the story itself so heart-warming. I HIGHLY recommend this movie. Most definitely a 10.

When F. Murray Abraham opened the envelope to reveal the Best Actress winner that year, he said "I consider this woman the finest actress in the world", and its hard to argue that point. She owns this movie and no one else would have done it as beautifully. Thank God this movie was done before she passed.

Geraldine Page won the Best Actress Oscar for this film in 1985. And it's no wonder why. The movie almost unfolds as a Broadway play. It may seem depressing at first, but that's the gift that Geraldine has in portraying the emotions of an aging Southern mother who yearns to return to the small town she left in Texas many many years before. For whatever reason, this film hits an emotional chord with me because Geraldine Page reminds me so much of my maternal grandmother. If you're into fast paced, action flicks - or comic farces, you won't like this film. But, if you really appreciate character development that slowly unfolds and develops in a film, you should not pass up this one!

Note, I didn't say movie star as she certainly was not a movie star but was a veteran Broadway actor, a real actor and not a movie face with "presence". Charles Bronson once said that what big movie stars have is "presence", not acting ability. Page has both of these attributes here in spades, acting and presence.

This great film could be my grandmother's story but in reverse, as my grandma had a very caring daughter, my mother, but a resentful son-in-law in my father so I saw a very similar story first hand, which made me appreciate this film all the more.

Page did a marvelous job of showing the immense disconnect between two diverse generations, one raised early in the 20th century in an era of intense religious devotion and the other raised 40 years later in a WWII era of emerging personal independence. The resulting conflicts between the loving son's selfish and demanding wife and his self-sacrificing mother was the entire story until her eventful "trip" back home to Bountiful, Texas. Wanting and praying so hard to be able to take her last trip home consumed her entire life as she gracefully but tearfully faced her hateful daughter-in-law's cruel harshness each and every day, with her unfortunate son forced to try to act as mediator. John Heard was effective as her concerned son caught in the middle.

Page was marvelous in the special way she showed her character's intense religious devotion and principles in how she always treated all people with decency even when they were not that way to her, and in how she tried her best to get along and be friendly in the face of intense dislike and resentment. Understandably, her all-day hymn singing got on her son's wife's nerves, just as my Grandma's incessant hymn singing got on my dad's nerves and forced the same conclusion....both old ladies were practically forced to leave.

Page's son loved both women dearly but he was forced to be in the difficult middle ground, wanting to please his jerk wife and his nice mom but was increasingly unable to do so, thus the long bus "trip" back home for mom was an inevitable run-away trip that left the son in an even greater mess....now what to do?

On her bus trip home, Page's character's "live and let live" understanding of humanity, and her awareness that we are all in the same boat here on earth(even though it was God's glorious boat to her)led her to reach out to a fellow bus traveler with immense friendliness and compassion in the best manner of her religion's teachings. Rebecca DeMornay was perfect as that fellow bus traveler, a prim young military wife on her way to her husband. And, even though Thomas Wolfe was right when he wrote that "you can never go home again", Page showed the perfect combination of wonder and sad acceptance upon seeing her old, run down, country home place again after so many years away in the big city.

Though her caring son finally came to retrieve her back home to whatever improvements he had worked out with his wife, at least she got to see the "old home place" one last time. She could now rest in peace no matter what. See this great story just to fill your heart, and to see that people in this country once were just like Page's character, and it was a better place for it.

Movies don't get any better than this one. If you loved this film you will also love "Places in The Heart".