AT SACHEM FARM (United States)
A review by Mark R. Leeper in bullet-list form
from the Toronto Internation Film Festival
CAPSULE: Well-produced, well-directed, but a fairly weak theme. This is a film that tells you that you can be everything you want to be if you just decide to be true to yourself and if you happen to have a lot of money. Rufus Sewell, Minnie Driver, and Nigel Hawthorne star. The film is competently made but the story is muddled. Rating: 4 (0 to 10), 0 (-4 to +4)
- The story deals with an extremely wealthy British family who own a fantastic farm out somewhere in the American West. Ross (Rufus Sewell) is fairly normal and is trying to sell off the family's wine stock in order to buy a local manganese mine and get his own fortune. His brother has gone off to live in the woods. Uncle Cullen (Nigel Hawthorne) dresses in Eastern robes and has plans to live at the top of a column like the hermit St. Simeon. Living all around the farm are eccentrics. Coming to visit is Ross's wealthy girlfriend Kendal (Minnie Driver) and her friend Laurie (Amelia Heine). - Written and directed by John Huddles, who does not make very clear what he is driving at. - Apparently trying to go for the same sort of audience as HAROLD AND MAUDE, but the deep meanings all seem to fall flat. - Tone of the film begins madcap, but it becomes serious before long. Different people try to reach the top of Uncle Cullen's column in different ways. - Pleasant photography of the farm only underscores the wealth of the family and hence undercuts the theme. Would you and I have the same set of options? There were a few errors in the photography and parts of scenes that go out of focus. - Some scenes seem to go on and on. - This should be a G-rated script.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
Copyright 1998 Mark R. Leeper
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