Finding Home

Finding Home was shot on an island off the coast of Maine and the photography is superb. The music is also terrific. A young woman inherits her Grandmother's coastal inn and must decide whether to keep it or sell it. Along the way she unlocks a mystery from the past. While the plot and acting are interesting enough, the pacing is slow and the dialog trite. Some scenes become repetitious and at least 20 minutes should be cut. But Finding Home captures the elusive beauty of a remote New England island summer vacation that more famous films never did (A Summer Place, Cider House Rules, The Whales of August.) I'm guessing this will go straight to video... where it will become popular with people who love that romantic "downeast" coastal mystique. (I want that pristine modified lobster boat used to ferry people to the island! )

Lis Brenner stars as a young woman who inherits her grandmother's rustic inn in Maine and a mystery to along with it. She encounters the longtime housekeeper played by Gen Bujold and the housekeeper's nephew, an artist, whom Brenner knew as a child. Louis Fletcher plays the woman's dead grandmother. The men cast in this women's TV flick are generic, and hard to tell apart. You know the nephew, a brooding Heathcliff character, will end up with the girl but it is a long road getting there. The secret as such is hardly a secret to any half-awake viewer. The scenery is pretty, and Brenner is believable as a career girl being drawn into her small-town life. Other than that, it's not worth watching.

How did this movie win an award and receive a four star rating? Was it four stars out of ten or what? It was so BAD, so unbelievably soap-opera predictable, that it had me mesmerized.

I found myself waiting desperately for the dog to return, since his acting outshone that of any of the human actors. The main character was ridiculous, her friend was so ill defined as to be non existent and her love interests were A) clichéd and B) wooden.

And what is with Genevieve Bujold? I could say that perhaps she has fallen on hard times, but her acting was as weak as the rest. I've been to high school plays with more believable characters than these.

How do movies like this get funding?

The photography is beautiful. The actors are attractive and their characters have moments of interest. I enjoyed the first half hour or so of a slowly unfolding story of family conflict, nostalgia for an interrupted youth. Frequent flashbacks enlivened the development of the backstory.

However, the slow unfolding became a plodding march from incident to incident more akin to the animation of a bulleted list than the representation of a maturing person.

The acting and cinematography talent are wasted on an overly long, contrived, unbelievable and trite plot. The writing is wooden to the point of embarrassment. My wife summed it up: This is the movie equivalent of a Good Housekeeping novel, in the worst sense.

My wife rented this movie recently, and when I saw the IMDb rating of 4/10 I almost didn't watch it. I'm so glad that I changed my mind! We both found it very touching and enjoyable... While it had a slower pace than movies I usually watch, it pulled me in and I soon found myself completely immersed in the story. Finding Home touches on issues of the problems that can arise from long-held family secrets, and the difficulties and eventual joys that can arise through truth and forgiveness. It also highlights some of the important things that can get lost in the shuffle of everyday life.

The acting, cinematography and music were also top notch (I plan on ordering the soundtrack this week from Amazon.)

If you have a chance to see this uplifting movie, don't pass it up... Highly recommended. 9/10.