Un dono prezioso

I hadn't realised that Brittany Murphy had died until I read her bio, so my scathing attack on her acting abilities in this film, seem somewhat untimely and unkind now. Suffice to say the story may have benefitted from a different casting and would have been all the better for it.

Tippi Hedren is in this movie so I was watching for her. I didn't know Tippi Hedren was going to be in the movie until after it started and I saw her name in the credits. I'm not actually a Tippi Hedren fan so I didn't expect I'd recognize her - because it's been 46 years since The Birds and when you've got 46 years between watching one movie to the next then you can expect there's going to be some changes. So I'm watching this movie trying to figure out who Tippi Hedren is. I know it's not the main character because she's young and Tippi's got to be, well, at least 46. The main character is this young girl who looks kind of like a duck. I don't mean to be rude but I don't know how better to describe the new Brittany Murphy look; which I do not like. It couldn't possibly be what Ms. Murphy wanted the day she when into her doctor's office and said, "Big lips please". Any doctor that would take that pretty little face and do what he did has to be a quack. So, to be honest I was having as hard of time recognizing Brittany as I was Tippi. It kind of ruined the movie for me, because I went in knowing it wasn't going to be a guy movie anyway, but then when I found that Brittany had gone all platypus I was really thinking, what's the use? Because the story is weak, the movie plods, and Brittany has duck lips.

I have been a big fan of Nora Roberts for many years. When I hear that some of her books were being turned into movies, I was very happy. I have seen the first four movies that had the same treatment and was expecting the same quality entertainment this time around.

I was very happy with the other three movies in this set. Northern Lights, Midnight Bayou, and High Noon met and sometimes even exceeded my expectations. It was only with Tribute that they fell short. It mostly had to do with the casting of Brittany Murphy in the role of Cilla.

In the book, Cilla is assertive, active, knowledgeable about all aspects of remodeling the house and physically capable of handling any part of the remodel. Ms. Murphy manages to pull off being assertive, active, and knowledgeable but she really misses on the physical aspect. Just watching her swing a sledge hammer makes me cringe. She swings it with little force and looks as if she's going to smash her foot at any moment. I am amazed that she didn't have an accident with the sledge while filming.

All in all it was an okay movie but it's definitely my least favorite of the second four.

If you want to see this Lifetime film, its because you (1) Like Nora Roberts; and/or (2) Read Tribute by Nora Roberts. Don't waste your time or money. Nora Roberts is a superb storyteller, and the novel is fantastic. This adaptation is the worst, hands down, ever. Not only is the acting a joke, but there is no development of the characters. Of course there isn't time to do that in 90 minutes. If you hadn't read the book, you would be clueless as to details: such as what happened to Steve? Why was Mr. Hennessey in prison? Countless other details just, poof, missing and unexplained. I can only imagine Nora Roberts; disappointment; however, she was paid handsomely for the rights to the story, so on to the next. The only redeeming grace was the beautiful property portrayed as Janet's farm. Gorgeous. But it wasn't located in Virginia, as Nora Roberts set it, that's for sure. Virginia doesn't have moss in the trees - so it was obviously somewhere south of there. THIS FILE WAS BEYOND DISAPPOINTING. I wouldn't have given it one star, except there was no option to assign negative numbers. THE WORST, EVER.

***SPOILERS*** Going back to her roots in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley former child movie star Cilla McGowan, Brittany Murphy, is determined to restore her grandmother's,the legendary Academy Award winning actress and singer, Janet Hardy (Tiffany Morgan) southern mansion. The place over the last thirty five years has gone to pot since Janet's tragic death-at age 38-back in the winter of 1971 from a massive overdose of barbiturates.

It doesn't take long for Cilla to make enemies in town with the angry and a bit unstable-to say the least- Old Man Carl Hennessey, Wallace Merck, suspiciously snooping around her house. Hennessey later shows how very very unneighborly like he is by him spitting in Cilla's face when she confronted him about his very strange and bizarre actions. It turned out that Cilla's Uncle Johnnie was responsible-by driving drunk-in Carl's son-who was a passenger in Johnnie's car- ending up paralyzed from the neck down!

There's also the fact that Janet was also having an affair with one of her neighbors that by Cilla uncovering his love letters, all unsigned, to her strongly hinted that she got pregnant by him! This may well have lead, in Janet's lover trying to save his marriage, to her murder not suicide as reported by the, back then in 1971, local coroner!

Getting romantically involved with her next door-or next farm- neighbor Ford Sawyer, Jason Lewis, a local graphic designer Cilla soon becomes the target of some local lunatic who, like some half dozen others in town, has it in for her for what Cilla's family-or late Grandma Janet Hardy-actions did to him. It's this shadowy psycho who's constantly breaking into Cilla's now restored mansion,and wrecking the joint, while she's away mostly spending her nights at Ford's place. It soon becomes evident to the police that Old Man Hennessey isn't the person that's committing these property crimes and acts of terror since he's been locked up all the time that they've been happening to Cilla. Then who's the person committing them?

As we all suspect, due to her very wild and anything goes lifestyle, the person driving poor Cilla's nuts has to be the man, or possibly his very jealous wife, whom Janet had an affair with just before her sudden and mysterious death! It's then that Cilla as well as her boyfriend Ford Sawyer realizes that it was that person who very possibly murdered Janet, and had it made to look like a suicide, and now in her getting close to the truth is going to do the very same thing to Cilla!