A River Runs Through It
Director: Robert Redford
Year Released: 1992
Rating: 2.0
Overly literary adaptation of Norman McLean's book about his family's love of fishing that gets a real boost because of Brad Pitt's dynamic performance. Like nature poetry, it's a little too enamored with its metaphors - namely the river-as-life and fishing-as-act-of-engaging-in-life - as well as its loving shots of sunrises, sunsets and endless water rushing over smooth rocks. The acting is good enough to transcend generic story types (straight-and-narrow son, wild son, love interest, stern patriarch, meek matriarch), though I'm not sure what to think of the subplot involving Emily Lloyd's brother 'from Hollywood' (a braggart, expectedly) and what it has to do with the rest of the story (aside from showing a contrast between the honest good ol' boys and ego-driven foreigners). As a movie, it's placid and pensive, and not very deep ... how appropriate.
