You won't be disappointed!

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

In truth, any opportunity to see the film on the big screen is welcome.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

The story in this movie was an Edward Albee stage play. For the most part the movie looks like a stage play, with static camera shots and characters with loud exposition and bold movement. It was set in rural Georgia, we can tell by references to going up to Atlanta, but it was actually filmed near Austin, Texas on the ranch owned by singer Willie Nelson.Vanessa Redgrave is Miss Amelia who seems to practically own the town. She runs the local store and makes and sells good moonshine in this depression era. When a family gets behind in rent she goes into their house at night, takes their sewing machine, and leaves. Things begin to change when a hunchback dwarf, Cork Hubbert as Cousin Lymon, shows up claiming to be her cousin, and he recites the family connections to back up his story. Amelia takes him in and treats him almost like a long lost son, doting on him, feeding him, letting him lounge when she is working in the heat of the day, showing him her moonshine operation.Trouble starts when Keith Carradine as Marvin Macy shows up. He is just out of prison and a flashback shows us that he some time earlier had asked Amelia's hand in marriage and she accepted, but them she threw him out for no apparent reason. When she heard he was headed back their way she announced in her crowded café that she didn't want any part of him. The theme of the movie is obscure because much of what we see doesn't make sense, so we must rely on what is explained at one point by Rod Steiger as Rev. Willin. Love takes two people, the one who loves, and the one who is the be-loved. Being the be-loved is difficult, and that is what Amelia experienced. Marvin Macy wanted to love her, but she was not able to be his be-loved, so her rejection turned Marvin into a criminal. When he returned to that town he was out to destroy her, which he did in a sense. Not my favorite type of movie, but it has some interesting elements.

How do you make a totally unappealing movie out of a story by one of America's most famous authors? Watch this film and find out. Maybe I am overrating author Carson McCullers, but I was impressed by "The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter" and was hoping for something memorable here, too. Forget it.Vanessa Redgrave looks like a man with her short haircut and clothing. I never found her much to get excited about in almost any movie, anyway. Rod Steiger as a preacher? How insulting is that? Unlikable characters, one after the other. Well, maybe that's the book, too, and I am being unfair to this film. I am not familiar with the story other than what I saw on screen and this was so unappealing a movie that I could never recommend it to anyone.It's just one backwards person after another in a backward town. Outside of some nice cinematography here and there, there is nothing to recommend. How anyone could sit through 100 minutes of this is amazing.I didn't even go into how bad this is directed. There is good news: this was the only film Simon Cowell directed.

Very good adaptation of Carson McCullers' incredible novella. The highly versatile Vanessa Redgrave is superb, as usual. I did not really know what to expect from Keith Carradine in his role, but was not disappointed. I was very happy to see that the filmmakers stayed very close to Edward Albee's stage adaptation; it was nice to see filmmakers not screw around and ruin something that works just fine in its original form. Fans of Southern literature will enjoy how true this film is to what McCullers' actually wrote, unlike most film adaptations of great literature. And the actors' performances are very strong, not pretentious like so many mediocre actors who know that the content is greater than they are. Redgrave and Carradine are honest and magnificent in their roles, especially as the intensity builds to the culminating fight at the end.

This film adaptation of Carson McCullers' novella is the best of all the screen versions of her works. Cinematography is excellent. Vanessa Redgrave turns in a great performance as the stoic Miss Amelia, unlucky in love but yearning to fulfill her thwarted desire to love and be loved. With the arrival of a dwarf claiming to be a relation, Miss Amelia finds herself able to live and love again. But with the arrival of Marvin Macy, her absentee husband, things take a change for the worse. The other performances are good, and the scenery and costumes accurately reflect a Depression-era southern backwater. A near-literal transcription from book to screen, without annoying time changes, character elimination, or overacting to distract from it. Good.