Shadrach

I stumbled upon this movie, bored and flipping through channels. I can't give a review on scenery, music, direction, acting, etc. Because I viewed "Shadrach" after viewing "12 Years a Slave", binge-watching "Underground" (the one with Jurnee Smollett), and seeing update after update about the Capitol Insurrection and the George Floyd trial. I was left exhausted, sad and angry because truth hurts. So I'm watching "Shadrach" and was curious about Paul's curious summer with the Dabney family and Shadrach. And it was just - sweet. It draws you in. The fact that most of the cast were newcomers made it all the more special. Is it a believable story? I don't know. Can a woman in an impoverished marriage with 7 kids and guzzles beer like Gatorade still look so great? If only. But there is love winning over hatred, privileged and dirt poor folk worshipping together and civility over law. Take a break from the world and watch something sweet.

Expanded from the short story of the same name from the little book "A Tidewater Morning" by William Styron, Shadrach is a wonderful film. If you haven't read the short-short story, you are in for a treat. When we are young, we feel a pull to leave; when we are old we are pulled back to where we came from. To walk from Alabama to Virginia to be buried where you grew up. A 100 year old former slave. That's a story.

This is movie portrays childhood, summer and the 30s in a wonderful and poetic way. An old man's will to be buried in the land he was born is no easy subject to put up in a movie, but the makers managed to give this story a very touchy style which helped it a lot. Children should watch it and learn what the Depression was like and how close we actually are to those days (the boy is alive nowadays and has met a man who has been a slave - history's not that far at all). And they would also learn a very deep lesson on life and its ways.

For once Andie McDowell stars in a role different from the high-class girl she used to play (think about Green Card and The Groundhog Day). And for once Harvey Keitel doesn't get on my nerve!

I've read quite a few reviews here and at other sites, and this movie sure seems to be taking its lumps (although I did read some favorable reviews). I don't know, though -- I rather liked it. It is a simple and straightforward story. It is certainly sentimentalized to some extent, but I am not one of those people for whom that is anathema. Despite its hard times, depression-era setting and poor white trash characters, there is a certain amount of idealization in the film. My gut feelings are that in real life Mr. Dabney, being a product of his time, would be more hard-hearted towards old Shadrach. Andie MacDowell is likeable as Mrs. Dabney, but she looked far too healthy and aerobically svelte to be the beer-guzzling alcoholic mother of a large, unwashed, lice-infested family living below the poverty level. Just having her clutch a beer bottle in almost every scene didn't quite pull off the illusion. Despite its simplification of complex social issues, its idealization of human nature fondly remembered in old age left me with kind of a warm fuzzy feeling. Some reviewers have rated "Shadrach" as being of "TV movie" quality, but I think a vice common to many TV movies is avoided here. Namely, trying to deal with tough, complex issues comprehensively in 90 to 120 minutes. The story is scaled down to its essence, and as such is nicely handled in an hour and a half. While Shadrach himself is sort of an enigma, trying to tell the story of his 99-year-long life in any sort of satisfying way could have expanded the film to epic, miniseries length. A film which touches on the issue of slavery in America, even obliquely, is bound to leave a certain amount of people unsatisfied if it does not proceed to rail at length about Man's inhumanity to Man. I just don't think that was the point of the film, though, and no film can satisfy everyone's expectations. I just see this as a sweet, sentimental, (and sure, rather unrealistic) view of events in a certain time and place, as seen through the eyes of a child. The fact that in a dream sequence young Paul sees Shadrach being presented with a Micky Mouse watch in the middle of the 19th century illustrates that we are seeing a child's-eye view of this story. I liked "Shadrach" enough to buy the video, and I think it's gotten sort of a bum rap.

This beautiful story got overlooked somewhere; what you call a 'sleeper'. Most certainly undeservedly, as this is indeed a wonderful film.

One could say that 'Shadrach' is an 'amateur' production, as most of the cast and the director Susanna Styron had not made any other films previously. Albeit the inclusion of very well-known names in the cast such as Martin Sheen (invisible narrator), Andy MacDowell and Harvey Keitel, who must be considered the 'professionals' in the whole enterprise.

Hiro Narita's photography is excellent, capturing the essence of rural Virginia and the sweat on the actors' faces in all kinds of light. The music is correct lending great atmosphere to the development of the film.

I cannot remember Harvey Keitel in a better role: here he is a convincing poor Virginian trying to eke out a living selling a few bottles of illegal whiskey, father of seven children. No overacting: nicely controlled interpretation of a simple rough type with a bit of good heart. Commendable performance. Andy MacDowell is not bad, though how she could possibly have such a good-looking sexy figure after seven children escapes all reason!

And the old man of the film: John Franklin Sawyer, aged 91 when this film was shot, the only film he has ever been in, is magnificent: you really feel for this old man as the film progresses and you empathise with his desire to return to the soil that saw him born. Wonderful, but without being a soppy tear-jerker. A sober feat, brilliantly handled. Scott Terra and Ginnie Randall give authentic performances.

All this points a finger at Susanna Styron: masterful directing, comparable with other masters of greater experience. She knew how she wanted to develop the characterization of her actors, and the result is extremely satisfying. She knew how she wanted those old cars to appear, and how the little old houses should appear. A great accomplishment. This is because from this 'amateur' production, it is clearly evident the amount of effort and loving care with which everyone concerned were bent on so as to make this beautifully told story be so warm and human.

If you have the luck to find this film on any channel or on video, do not miss it: this film is richly rewarding. It deserves to be far better known than it is. My vote is a high seven out of ten.