A Family Thing

Any movie about racial matters is bound to be difficult to tackle by anyone with scruples and integrity. For those who can deftly deal with the issue and make a quality movie: my hat's off to them. "A Family Thing" is a quality movie.

Earl Pilcher, Jr. (Robert Duvall), an old white Arkansan finds out that his real mother was not the old white woman who raised him and who just passed away, but a Black woman his father had an illicit relationship with. This news rocked his genteel Southern world. He grew up a proud white Southern man who referred to Blacks as N-words. Now he has to confront the fact that A.) his father was a philanderer and B.) he was half Black. He now wanted to find his real brother, Ray Murdock (James Earl Jones), thereby fulfilling his adopted mother's wish and satisfying his own curiosity

It wasn't a felicitous reunion between the two of them. There was some serious bitterness: Earl because he had to face the fact he wasn't white (or at least all white) and Ray because he saw Earl's father as the cause of his mother's death.

This was a well written and finely acted drama. Billy Bob Thornton's first screenplay, "One False Move," was a good debut. "A Family Thing" is even better.

I saw this movie back when it first came to video. I didn't know anything about it, but I put it in anyway and sat back with an open mind. What followed for the next two hours was a fascinating story of a bigoted, Mississipi tractor salesman who finds out that he is half black. While this might not sound like a big deal, let me explain a bit. I grew up down in the delta, near the location that this movie was filmed. It is a big deal down there. Unfortunately, the majority isn't quite as color-blind as they are in other parts of the united states and bigotry is still a pretty common thing. I'm sad to say that there is still a little bit of a barrier there, and if more people were to see this movie, then I'm sure things would be a little bit different.

You see, Robert Duvall plays a fellow (not the most open-minded of sorts) named Earl. In the opening, we get to see the events that make up a typical day for Earl (coffee drinking, shooting the breeze, and selling tractors). We also learn that Earl's Mom isn't in the best health as she passes away ten minutes into the film. She also leaves a note behind telling Earl that she isn't his real mother. His real mother was black and Earl is the result of an affair that costs his blood mother her life. Since Earl came out looking white, he was raised up like nothing ever happened.

I can see it as a shock. One, Earl appears to be in his mid-fifties. (that's quite a big shock to a guy in the prime of his life) two, he discovers that not only is he a b**tard child to a mother he never knew, he also has an older half-brother. After all of this, Earl needs to take a road-trip to get himself together and maybe meet the brother he never knew. What follows next is a journey (both physical and spiritual) that will show ol'Earl a thing or two about life and love.

Written by Tom Epperson and none other than Ol' Billy Bob Thornton himself, "A Family Thing" is one of the best feel good movies I have ever seen. I highly reccommend it. It's pretty rare that a movie comes along that is good enough to change one's life. This oughta be required viewing for high-school students. What a film. 10/10

Another delightful collaboration of Robert Duvall and Billy Bob Thornton. How refreshing it is to be treated to non-Hollywood type characters that the viewer can identify with. Jones and Duvall are splendid, but like another reviewer says, the show stealer is Irma P. Hall.

What a pleasant surprise this was. I caught this one day on Showtime and really didn't give it much of a chance. But I was so wrong!! Powerful performance by Irma P. Hall (as Aunt T.), and Robert Duvall is at his best as well. Wonderfully acted and written, this has to be the best movie I have seen in a long while. Sure, the same old southern stereotypes are portrayed as well as the same for the inner-city black culture, with many being quite accurate. Some parts were a little over the top, like the birthday party in the bar that Earl crashes as a total stranger. But that being said, not a lot of negatives I can say about this movie.

A Family Thing is a drama about a Southen man (Duvall) who's mother reveals on her deathbed that he was not her child. Rather he was the result of a forced encounter between his father and the black help. In order to keep a promise Duvall sets off to find his half-brother (Earl-Jones).

Although the story seems to be about race - it's main theme is one of forgiveness and acceptance of others, with race being one of the barriers to break down.

All the characters have their own barriers to overcome - Duvall has to confront the fact that he is not white, Earl-Jones has to deal with his hatred of past events and Michael Beach has to come to terms with missing out on pro-football and the breakup of his marriage. Only the sagely aunt T. (Irma P. Hall) has the ability to accept everyone for whom they are - partly due to being blind "and not being able to judge folks on what they look like".

It's not an earth shattering piece of story telling and at times doesn't seem to have a consistent flow to it but it held my attention throughout and was actually quite rewarding.

It's all a bit tidy (in real life, nothing gets sorted this easy), but it definately makes you think.