O Regresso para Bountiful

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!

This is a gentle, contemplative little film. It is the story of an old woman's return to her pre-Depression home, and the memories and regrets that the journey invokes.

Mother Watts lives with her son Ludie and his wife Jessie Mae in a two-room apartment. Life is cramped. Mother has to sleep on the couch, everybody in the apartment is constantly getting in everybody else's way, physically and emotionally, and the neighbours can hear every word. Mother Watts is a country girl in spirit, having been raised on the land, and her yearning to get away from the rootless, joyless suburbs eventually overwhelms her ...

The film is set in the nascent middle-class suburban environment of Houston, Texas in the 1940's. Ludie and Jessie Mae are a typical couple in their early middle years: he is hoping for a salary raise, so that he can afford a house and a car, she inhabits a narrow psychological world of nice clothes, coffee shops and picture shows. Ludie's mother lives with them, and this irritates Jessie Mae intensely. The two women clash repeatedly as Jessie Mae constantly seeks to assert her ascendancy within the household.

Mother Watts is a simple soul. She sings the hymns she learnt as a child as she goes about her dreary chores (Jessie Mae does no housework). Mother receives a monthly pension cheque from the government, and this seems to be the only reason that Jessie Mae tolerates her presence. The daughter-in-law clearly regards the cheque as her own property.

The old lady inhabits a world of reverie, an intuitive, emotional world of memories. The full moon keeps her awake all night, as it did when she lived in the rural community of Bountiful, some 20 years previously. In the glow of the moonlight, she hankers for that idealised country life. When Jessie Mae switches on the electric light, its harsh glare ends the dream-time abruptly, stark modernism cutting Mother Watts' links with her own personal history.

Mother Watts resolves to make one last trip to Bountiful. On her way she encounters obstacles (she has enormous difficulty cashing her cheque) and disappointments (death and progress have transformed the Bountiful of her memories). However, she also meets with the kindness of strangers. Thelma, the young woman who is travelling her way, befriends her and shares confidences with her. Mother Watts reveals that two of her children died in Bountiful - one of diphtheria, one of sheer poverty. The local sheriff (Richard Bradford) undergoes a change of heart and helps the old woman to revisit the place of her dreams.

When Ludie and Jessie Mae finally catch up with the wandering old lady, Ludie momentarily glimpses that other world, the world of soil, simplicity and communal spirit. Jessie Mae is of course impervious to Bountiful's charms, and she seems utterly out of place in her white high-heels.

The 'message' of this nostalgic little film is that people who live on the land put down roots which sustain them them through hardship and sadness, whereas the shallow urbanites have nothing to bolster their bland existence. Mother Watts may have lost two babies, but she is infinitely more fulfilled than Jessie Mae, who has never had any children.

An excellent period feel suffuses the film. The early scenes in the apartment are suitable claustrophobic, helping to develop the theme of 'hemming-in'. By contrast, when Mother Watts begins her bus ride, the screen opens out into an impressive panorama of land and sky. We feel that this will be Mother Watts' final adventure in life, and this elegiac quality is subtly underscored by clever touches: we see her behind a glass panel at the bus station, with the lettering "Houston Terminal Cafe" obliterating her face.

Geraldine Page is great as Mother Watts, keeping her character simple and humble, and resisting the temptation to 'grandstand'. John Heard impresses in the role of Ludie, the slightly downtrodden son who strives to do the right thing. Again, the characterisation is spot-on ... Ludie is dull and inarticulate, and Heard grounds him in bathos. Carlin Glynn has fun playing the awful Jessie Mae, and Rebecca de Mornay is first-class as the sweet-natured Thelma.

A restricted palate can sometimes produce the most powerful effects. The final scene, where Mother Watts gets her fingers in the dirt one last time, is a terrific climax, built up slowly and patiently, and relying purely on the interplay of characters.

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.

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.

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".