THE LONG WALK HOME
A film review by Steve Upstill
Copyright 1991 Steve Upstill
Directed by Richard Pearce Starring Whoopi Goldberg and Sissy Spacek
Summary: Socially correct historical drama scores in a big way by foregoing melodramatics, histrionics and contrivance in favor of simple human observation and dead-on accurate sense of place and time.
You know the type: the well-meaning, socially redeeming, liberally uplifting Hollywood movie. GANDHI. MISSISSIPPI BURNING. LILIES OF THE FIELD. CRY FREEDOM. NORMA RAE. Etc., etc. You know the characters: the saintly hero(es) doing the right thing at deadly threat to life and limb; the horrific villains eager to maim to maintain the status quo. You know the scenes: heroes confront injustice and muster their inner resources for the battle; dramatic scenes of human transcendence as heroes reach out and touch one another in ways they never expected; villains beat up on heroes who in spite of their fear and ambivalence stick to their path; ultimate triumph in the end as heroes are vindicated and villains vanquished. You know the sell: see this movie, it's Good For You.
I know the type too, which is why THE LONG WALK HOME was on my B list of movies until last night, when the starting time happened to be right. It may just be my background in the South, but there were several times that I wondered if I was going to be able to take the whole thing, and that was just in the first half.
It's about the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott of 1955-56, one of the first incidents in recorded history where blacks stood up for themselves against their surrounding society. Whoopi Goldberg is maid to Sissy Spacek, middle-class housewife and pillar of her community.
The details are astonishingly right, from the accents to the way people look to the horrible 1950s interior decoration. Most Hollywood movies set in the South don't have a clue, treating the locale and its occupants like exotic, threatening specimens from some far-off planet, who wind up unrecognizable to anybody who's actually *from* there. Believe me, this movie gets it right. I can still remember my mother's bridge party cackling at the news of Martin Luther King's death, and I believe I recognized one or two of them in the bridge party here.
Of course the credits are first-rate. Whoopi Goldberg has to convey quiet strength without becoming saintly, and she does. Sissy Spacek's housewife has to give up her whole life without a word to anyone, and she does. These two roles are ripe for an orgy of Acting, but these two actors gave up their shot at an Oscar for the sake of their characters.
But what impressed me most was what's missing. The villains are hissable, but you recognize them as regrettable, but real, human beings with understandable, though not admirable, motives. There isn't a whisper of insufferability in any of the heroes. And it doesn't focus on the white middle-class housewife and the way her life is touched and transformed by these Struggling Negroes. It's about the most unheroic heroes you ever saw.
The biggest surprise omission is the lack of Big Scenes. The boycott starts about two minutes into the picture, and it's not even over before the end: no victory rally, no heroic vindication. In fact, you can probably spot half a dozen opportunities for the big scene, each one of them resolutely passed over in favor of, I think, bigger stakes. For example, there's a scene just after a black minister's house is bombed. The maids are in the kitchen, doing their usual work, and the housewife is just standing in the living room, looking at them. Not a word is said, not a movement is made. This film is secure enough to let you feel the gulf between those two rooms all by yourself, and sure enough, you do. What a compliment to the audience.
By maintaining a human level of interaction, THE LONG WALK HOME is out to touch you deeply rather than hitting you over the head with the kind of drama that these pictures specialize in. And for me it succeeded magnificently. Maybe it's just me, maybe I was just in the mood, but I haven't seen a movie in a long time that had me so close to tears so often, with such understated dynamics.
I'll tell you, it's really something different to be so moved by a movie that doesn't need histrionics or contrived heroics to do it. Did I mention that I think you might like to check this movie out for yourself?
Steve Upstill
.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews