Director: James Ivory
Year Released: 1990
Rating: 2.0
Ma (Joanne Woodward) and Pa (Paul Newman) do their best to raise three children in a rapidly changing American climate, where Daughter #1 (Kyra Sedgwick) sleeps around and wants to be an actress, Daughter #2 (Margaret Welsh) wants to marry some poor guy (who ends up slapping her around) and Son (Robert Sean Leonard) runs around with the town skank (before joining the Air Force). There are literally too many subplots for this episodic and unfortunately unfulfilling picture to handle - it even ends abruptly, literally and figuratively 'stuck' - and the general point being made in each of the pieces is that one must adjust to changing social standards or risk becoming an antique oneself. Woodward is a fuddy-duddy with good intentions and Newman is so austere he ceases to be human, but Blythe Danner is a scene stealer as Woodward's crackpot friend - she grows crazier and crazier, and eventually checks herself out of the oppressive hellhole she found herself in.
