Susan Granger's review of 'SHADRACH" (Columbia Pictures)
Based on a short story by William Styron, "Shadrach" is a piece of Americana, set in the Depression-era of 1935, as a young boy recalls three unforgettable summer days when he was ten years old. As the only child in a proper, middle-class Virginia family, Paul Whitehurst (Scott Terra) often escapes to the ramshackle house of impoverished neighbors, the earthy, volatile Dabneys (Harvey Keitel, Andie MacDowell), who have seven mischievous children, one of whom is his best friend. One hot afternoon while the boys are shooting marbles, a frail, 99 year-old former slave, Shadrach (John Franklin Sawyer), appears, having walked from Alabama to be buried on the old Dabney grounds he fondly remembers from childhood. When the Dabneys, who have fallen on hard times, realize his quest, attempting to fulfill his final wish and allowing him to die in dignity has a profound effect on everyone, as the family embarks on a heartbreaking, hilarious expedition to the dilapidated family plantation, discovering "Death ain't nothing to be afraid of. It's life to be feared of." Harvey Keitel's benign bigot, who is touched by an old slave, is the kind of character he hasn't done before, just as the beer-guzzling mother is a change of pace for Andie MacDowell. First-time writer/director Susanna Styron's integrity scores with her father's fictionalized, autobiographical, character-driven material, touching our human chord of kindness. Curiously, both "Shadrach" and William Styron's "Sophie's Choice" are about living survivors of the defining tragedy of their century: slavery and the Holocaust, respectively. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Shadrach" is a poignant, compassionate 8. It's a gem, a gentle, funny, family story that will find a place in your heart.
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