- Film Review
- Reviewed By David Parkinson
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3 out of 5
Adapted from the novel by John Kennedy Toole, this measured, beautifully photographed but harrowing study of family angst in Georgia around the time of the Second World War marked the American debut of director Terence Davies. Although far from his Liverpool home, Davies revisits much of the territory covered in his acclaimed Distant Voices, Still Lives and The Long Day Closes. Yet he manages to breathe some new life into the familiar small-town formula, thanks to his keen eye for detail and a supremely assured performance from Gena Rowlands as the nightclub singer aunt who shakes up the lives of the ten-year-old Drake Bell and his careworn parents Diana Scarwid and Denis Leary.
Plot Summary
A youngster growing up in 1940s Georgia escapes his nightmarish life with his brutal father and insane mother by spending time at the home of his eccentric has-been singer aunt. Drama, starring Gena Rowlands, Jacob Tierney, Diana Scarwid and Denis Leary.
Cast and crew
Cast
- Aunt Mae
- Gena Rowlands
- Sarah
- Diana Scarwid
- Frank
- Denis Leary
- David aged 15
- Jacob Tierney
- Bobbie Lee Taylor
- Leo Burmester
- Miss Scover
- Frances Conroy
- Reverend Watkins
- Peter McRobbie
- Flora
- Joan Glover
- David aged ten
- Drake Bell
Crew
- Director
- Terence Davies
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