Unusual in its focus on an elderly woman, "The Trip To Bountiful" offers a story that is slow but graceful, sentimental in parts, and has a lot to say about growing old, especially in the context of living with others. Geraldine Page pours her heart and soul into the role of Carrie Watts, an elderly widow who lives with her son and daughter-in-law in a cramped urban apartment, and who wants more than anything to make one last trip back to her rural roots.Homely in appearance, Carrie is quite a character. She's feisty and spunky, insistent, slightly forgetful but not senile, yet charming and likable. And she likes to hum gospel hymns. Her son is something of a sop married to a talky, overbearing worldly woman annoyed at having to share their small flat with his mother. Verbal conflict abounds.Yet the story centers on Carrie's desire to return to her old homestead before she dies. The script neatly conforms to a standard three-Act structure, with the final Act being the most sentimental. Page's performance is so riveting and multifaceted that we forget how much dialogue there is and, as a result, the film never seems talky. But the script does play with the viewers' emotions and, as such, is quite manipulative.Production design and costumes wonderfully capture the 1940s setting, especially in the nighttime scenes at the rural bus stop and in the small town, where naturalistic lighting and ambient background sounds render scenes highly realistic.Carrie's story is the story of many older people. It's what happens naturally when someone has lived a long and full life, to reminisce about the past, to yearn for its return, to grasp the reality of change, and to come to terms with the inevitability of one's own mortality.Despite a manipulative script, the film's underlying concept conveys genuine heart and soul. And Geraldine Page's Oscar-winning performance is breathtaking in its scope and depth.

Horton Foote's poignant story of an old woman's desperate attempt to return to her childhood home in Texas offers more genuine emotion than most tearjerkers, thanks to his sensitive screenplay and to a compassionate performance by Geraldine Page as the elderly Carrie Watts, on the run from her henpecked son and his nagging wife, and from the four bare walls that frame her life. The supporting cast offers able support to what really should be regarded as a one-woman show, for which the actress won a well-deserved Oscar. And Peter Masterson's discreet direction helps transform what could have been little more than an exercise in period nostalgia into a modest but sentimental hymn to the essential decency of human nature.

Geraldine Page won an Academy Award as Best Actress for her role in the Horton Foote drama, "A Trip To Bountiful," about a widowed woman living with her son and his wife played memorably by Carlin Glynn in Texas. She yearns for one last trip back to Bountiful which is a dying town. She meets Rebecca DeMornay, a fellow traveler, and they bond. The most interesting scenes are when she tries to escape her son's apartment and go to the bus station. All she wants is one trip to Bountiful before she dies. When she gets there, it's more of a ghost town or cemetery than a town itself. She has to convince others of her quest for one last trip to Bountiful before she goes.

First time i have ever seen this movie. I was enthralled. I loved Page's performance. I've known people like Carrie Watts. I've also known people like Jessie May, who need a good slap. Rebecca DeMornay was so kind and sweet and it makes you want them to stay in touch. You almost get the feeling that Carrie Watts was receiving messages from her dead friend, the sense of urgency she had about getting home; and then to get home and find out your friend had just died and was buried the day before. My own mother lived only 100 miles from where she was born and she very rarely was able to go back to see her old homestead; the house that she lived in during the winter is still standing and in good shape. I feel bad now that I never made a bigger effort to take her back there so she could visit. This is one of the best movies i have ever seen.