The Trip to Bountiful

Most people associate the film output created for the cable network Lifetime as being rather soapy and insipid. But every now and then, the much-maligned channel strikes gold - and its latest happy harvest is this new adaptation of the classic Horton Foote play.

"The Trip to Bountiful" follows the elderly Carrie Watts, whose twilight years are being spent in the home of her sympathetic son and her less-than-pleasant daughter-in-law. Carrie is eager for one final wish: To revisit her childhood home in the tiny town of Bountiful, Texas. Without the consent of her son and his wife, Carrie slips away and takes the eponymous journey by bus.

"The Trip to Bountiful" first appeared as a one-shot television play in 1953 starring Lillian Gish as Carrie. Gish recreated the role in a Broadway version later in 1953, but the show was not transferred to the big screen until 1985, with Geraldine Page as Carrie. Although Page's performance won the Academy Award, her fussiness and fidgeting seemed closer to an Actor Studio's interpretation of a lonely Texas woman than the sensitive yet steely resolve that Gish brought to the role.

This new film, which was inspired by last year's Broadway revival of Foote's play, recasts the central characters as African-Americans, with the legendary Cicely Tyson as Carrie. Tyson's interpretation of the role is closer in spirit to introspective Gish than to extroverted Page, and the sincerity she brings to this role elevates the beauty of Foote's drama into a moving portrait of aging, memory and the spirit to persevere. The racial recasting also provides a new dimension to the drama with regard to the disenfranchisement of blacks in the Jim Crow South, which gives Carrie's isolation and longing to reconnect with her roots a new sense of urgency.

Blair Underwood (as Carrie's son) and Keke Palmer (as the young woman befriended by Carrie) offer subtle performances. The one catch is Vanessa Williams, who poorly overplays the admittedly thankless role of Carrie's snooty daughter-in-law. But her screen time is relatively brief, and little damage is done in her broad emoting.

"The Trip to Bountiful"
DVD
Drama, 90 minutes, TV-PG
$14.98, Lionsgate