A FAMILY THING
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1996 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: An Arkansas man discovers that his
real mother was black and goes to Chicago to find
his black half-brother. This is a deliberately
paced and well-textured look at one black family
and life in a black neighborhood, but it touches on
a much wider black experience. Three excellent
performances keep the viewer's attention. Rating:
low +2 (-4 to +4)
Earl Pilcher, Jr. (played by Robert Duvall), is an Arkansas good ol' boy, complete with a pick-up truck that works a lot better than his family does. When his mother dies she leaves him a letter explaining that she really is not his biological mother. His real mother was a black servant whom his father had raped and who died giving birth to him. The final wish of the only mother Earl has known is that he find and get to know his black half-brother, Ray, in the Chicago police department. Earl takes his blue pick-up truck to navigate the Interstate and find his brother. What he finds is that Ray (James Earl Jones) has buried just beneath the surface the hate he still feels for Earl Sr. and Earl Jr. Having discharged an unpleasant responsibility, Earl starts for home only to be mugged and have his precious pick-up stolen. Ray finds he must care for Earl while Earl recovers and tries to get back his pick-up. Earl stays with Ray and gets to know Aunt T, their mother's sister (played by Irma P. Hall).
Earl describes his football days by saying he was small but made up for it by being slow. Much the same could be said of the plot of A FAMILY THING, but the texture of life in the black neighborhood of Chicago is more the point of the film than the pacing. The plot is just a bit contrived to give Earl a grand tour of the black experience in America. It does more than just show it to him; he also experiences the feel of being an outcast and a minority. All this happens while he is thinking over the implications of his being black, all the while still looking and thinking white. Charles Gross's jazz score matches in style the low- energy story-telling. It pushes the right buttons, but is not very creative. Special credit should be given to Fred Murphy's photography which is constantly engaging in both the Arkansas town and especially in the Chicago black neighborhood with its El track supports.
If I were to choose whom I thought was the best American actor, there is no doubt in my mind that Robert Duvall would be my first choice. Here he gives a quiet but rich performance. The scene in which he reads his white mother's letter to his father is a beautiful piece of acting. Reportedly his approach is to get someone with the same background as his character and record him reading the lines, then to mimic it. Whatever he does, he is clearly sweating the details and turning in a totally authentic performance. James Earl Jones has a much narrower acting range, but within that range he is a joy to watch. However, Duvall's and Jones's acting styles do not quite mesh since while Duvall slightly understates his acting, Jones overstates. And both are often upstaged by Irma P. Hall whose Aunt T seems to have more personality than the two main characters combined.
Acting and visual texture carry the film even if the pacing is slow. I rate it a low +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
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