Mary & Tim

This movie will always be very special to me and I'll tell you why but first a short synopsis.

Mary has lost her husband and although her friends try to set her up with other eligible men she's content to remain single. She is in her early 50's, is reasonably well off and has a job running a bookstore that she enjoys. Into this comfortable existence stumbles Tim, an attractive young man in his mid 20's. Tim is learning disabled and works as a handyman and gardener. They meet when Tim, the butt of a practical joke, destroys some of Mary's flowerbeds and offers to repair them. Mary is pleased with Tim's work and in all innocence offers him a more permanent job as gardener. She soon learns that he cannot read and drawn by his open and friendly nature she offers to teach him.

Without planning it the two become friends and as they work together that friendship begins to blossom into something more. Here the drama begins.

Mary finds herself attracted to someone she knows that society says she shouldn't be attracted to. She knows that if she gives in to that attraction, there are those that will always condemn her affection as somehow perverted or wrong.

Also Mary is a bit overwhelmed that Tim feels the same attraction to her. Tim may be slow but he's not stupid. He's a grown man and he has a grown mans feelings. He knows what he wants and says so, first when he kisses her and then when he proposes marriage. Will she ignore society's small-mindedness and enjoy her amazing good fortune or will she yield to societies pressure and forgo the joy that could be hers?

Now as to why this movie is so special to me, its because this film deals very effectively with a conflict that I've felt personally and have never seen expressed quite so well; the feelings that a gay man feels when he considers coming out. Would I somehow find the courage to admit how I felt and take a chance at happiness or would I conform to what I knew society wanted and sacrifice any such chance.

I know that there are those that will disapprove of my choice but then Mary knew the same thing and had the courage to follow her true feelings and her true friends understood and accepted in the end. Can it really be wrong for two folks who care for each other to make each other happy when it does no harm to others?

Candice Bergen plays a contented 50-ist widow settled into her life as a single, when a slightly learning-disabled younger hunk careens into her life as the butt of a practical joke, damaging her garden. He turns out to be a talented gardener, and starts his magic on her garden, and on her. Tim's super-achiever sister marries into a wealthy family, who are, frankly, embarrassed at having a "retard" in the family. Mary (Candice Bergen) teaches Tim to read, and Tim gradually starts to experience grown-up feelings toward Mary. Thomas McCarthy is very convincing as Tim, and he plays the part with ease, and naturally. Candice Bergen is, and always has been, one of my favorite actresses, who's striking beauty has stayed with her into maturity. I saw this on the Hallmark Channel & really enjoyed the simple plot and emotional dynamics. A bit of a tear-jerker, but nice, relaxing entertainment.

MARY AND TIM is a remake that out-does the original. The characters have pure motives and there is never a hint of impropriety. Candice and Tom are convincing and attractive in the roles of Mary and Tim. I keep hoping to find this movie available on home video.

I have been a fan of Candice Bergen for years including her top-rated TV show, Murphy Brown, but I was not prepared for her stellar performance in Mary and Tim a little film I never heard of before. I was certainly familiar with the original movie from which Mary and Tim was taken with Mel Gibson and Piper Laurie - an Australian film part of the Australian New Wave Film Movement. Yet Candice Bergen seems to reinvent herself for Mary and Tim showing such depth and emotion that I was really floored since I had always regarded her as something beautiful to look at and amusing. But in Mary and Tim it's like I had never seen Candice Bergen before she was so new and so different and so remarkable. As always I could not take my eyes off her even when the young stud was parading around in hardly anything at all. That actor, Thomas McCarthy, is excellent and convincing but he's no match for the way Bergen dominates the film and the story. She is a gem and a treasure for achieving what she does in this film.

"Mary and Tim" is in a lot of ways, better than the 1979 movie "Tim". One thing to note, anyone who thinks Justine is hostile in this movie (or Dawnie in the 1979 version), would be surprised by the book.

Tims' family is a aware of Marys' age in this version well than before in the book or other movie. It is a cuase of tension, but not the hostility in the two prior cases.

One difference is that this version is shot in California, as opposed to Australia. Another important version is that Mary Horton is a widow, as opposed to the two prior versions, where she was never married. As well, Mary talks about her departed mother, while in the novel, she never knew her parents.

Also, in this version, Tim is more emotionally empowered. It is him who asks Mary to marry him. Not some outsider. He also is shown to have a lot of insight into what Mary wants, well before Mary is willing to admit it to herself.

After Tim proposes marriage, before Mary responds, his father asks if he and Mary have had sex. Tim is shown as knowing about sex, although I will not say if they do have sex before marriage.

It is a very good version. I always enjoy seeing it.