I was inspired to revisit this classic after seeing Mary Steenburgen in Time After Time with Malcolm McDowell. McDowell had a small part in this film also as Rawlings' publisher.Eighty years ago, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings gave up everything to move to Florida and write. She went as far away from everything as you could go. In the land of orange groves, cypress trees, and wildlife abundant, she found the inspiration she needed. This is her story.It is peppered with colorful characters that lived in the backwoods of Florida, a place that hardly exists anymore with all the development. It featured outstanding performances by Rip Torn as her neighbor, Peter Coyote as the one who was trying to win her heart, Dana Hill as the young girl that inspired "The Yearling," and Alfre Woodard in one of her first roles.Torn and Woodard got Oscar nominations for their performances.One of the most impressive features of the film, other than showing the beauty of Florida that is long gone, is the respect shown for the land by Rawlings. Any Native American would be proud of her respect for the land.It is an inspirational family film that is worth revisiting over and over.

The locations are great, the photography is fairly good, and the sound recording is realistic, however there is little else that is very positive about this film. Rip Torn delivers quite a strong performance, and Dana Hill has her moments, but the rest of the performers do nothing much, that including Steenburgen, whose character comes over as rather cold. The pacing is too leisurely to be enticing, and the film feels like it has a sugarcoating to it. The surface looks great, but it is not too deep, and therefore it is hard to speak of it as being anything better than ordinary. Ritt has done far better stuff in his time.

Slow pace I can deal with, not to mention the heavy, heady atmosphere of the Florida swamps, beautifully evoked in this film. But it was harder to deal with Steenbergen's character, a woman with little tolerance for any other way but her own, stubborn, unpleasant and changeable in temper in a flash, who not incidentally seemed to hit the bottle at all times of the day and night (might explain the mood swings). The movie seemed to be championing Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings "modern independent woman" persona for a receptive 80's audience (no surprise since Hillary's pal plays the central role) and never any of the complexities of the character.

A different but beautiful movie. It's been a while since I've seen it last but I thought it was a good picture. It would be interesting to see it again now that I'm older. I'm sure I would enjoy it just that much more.