Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Simply Perfect

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

In this adorable television movie, George Newbern is a real estate developer. He has his eye on a rural property in a small town, owned by a very old man. When he approaches the landowner, he's adamant about not selling, so to get his way, George recruits his psychologist girlfriend, Mary Louise Parker, to meet with the man and say he's mentally unfit to keep his property. But when she goes to the town, she's instantly charmed by the man and other residents.There's so much to love about this movie. While I normally find Mary Louise to be obnoxious, she's actually sweet in this film and didn't get on my nerves. Sidney Poitier plays the title role in his second-to-last film, and he's just as dashing and charming as he was forty years earlier. Everyone in town loves Sidney, and it's easy to see why, since he makes beautiful furniture and is also the local handyman. Dianne Wiest has such a big crush on him that she purposely breaks things in her house just to get him to come over! It's so adorable, and they have a darling rapport together.Sterling Anderson's script is both truthful and cute in its description of Sidney's character—and thereby, Sidney himself. Every single person in the story references how handsome and youthful Sidney is, even though he's supposed to be very, very old. If you like Sidney Poitier movies, or Hallmark-esque feel-good movies, you'll love The Simple Life of Noah Dearborn. I do!

Noah is a carpenter who lives on 35 acres that a big real estate giant wants to build one of their cheesy malls on. This man effects people in one of two ways, either their lives are changed forever or they just don't get it. You feel sorry for the ones that don't get it but not very sorry. Sidney Poitier is as hauntingly charismatic in this film as he was in "Lilies of the field" the first time I saw him in films. This is a good film to relax and enjoy and ponder how beautiful the earth is and how wise Noah is.

WARNING: REVIEW CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS It almost makes me cry to see Sidney Poitier shunted into a land of mediocre TV movies. His intensity, concentration and facial array are still finely honed, so what's a first-rate actor doing in dirge like this?I love Sidney – love him, I tell you – and watching him work the cable circuit in what is practically a watered-down version of A Raisin in the Sun is disheartening indeed.Poitier plays Noah Dearborn, a 91-year-old "carpenter God". No disrespect to carpenters, but pumping up such a glamourless job with aggrandising lines like "Nothing seems to interest him but his work. In my mind that makes him a noble man" just doesn't work. What next – the Lord of accountancy? The saviour of tax inspectors? Sidney Poitier as Tony Smith, Dental Research Technician? It's revealed that since the death of his family Noah has lived his life without touching another human being, and so spends his days playing with his tools. (Leave it!) Dearborn isn't perhaps Sidney's greatest characterisation as he sports a not totally convincing Southern accent. But don't hold it against him – Michael Caine and Bob Hoskins are ropy when it comes to assuming a dialect, and even Robert De Niro fails to engage as anything other than an Italian American.Backing up Sidney are some cheesy TV movie actors delivering hackneyed TV movie lines. Gregg Champion is a TV movie director, whose groundbreaking technique seems to involve placing the camera down and then rushing off for a cup of tea while the actors say their lines in front of it. Even Poitier can't set alight clanky lines like "All you people come out here dressed as lambs, but you smell like foxes." Or how about "You folks are long-winded when a small breeze will do just fine" and "Some say when God comes down to vacation on Earth, he stays at Noah's."The film's narrative is punctuated by four flashback sequences, each sentimental one of them delivering a trite platitude like "When a man loves his work... truly loves it... sickness and death will get tired of chasing you." But while the 'sell your land' plot is evocative of Raisin, there's no racial or social dynamic, merely a group of rich city businessmen trying to buy the land of the poor country worker. The recreation of a close-knit Southern community is also somewhat stereotyped and rose-tinted, with not a worried-looking rooster in sight.Predictably, a psychiatrist (Mary-Louise Parker, better than most) starts to see things Noah's way. The title is also apt, because 'simple' perfectly describes the A to B plotting which could comfortably fit on the back of a matchbox. Breaking down the character name is also telling, not least the unsubtle Biblical reference of his first name.The tacky conclusion sees Noah get Parker out of a car crash with some of his carpentry tools. Presumably if the crash had killed her, he'd have resuscitated with a hammer and chisel. For there's nothing that Noah can't do, a folk hero, Santa Claus and minor deity all wrapped into one.That said, the film is quite sweet, albeit in an overstated, sickly way. But after In The Heat of the Night, The Defiant Ones and Lilies of the Field - to name just three – then why did it have to come to this? Make the most of him, Hollywood... he won't be around forever.

The best word I can think of to describe this movie is "nice." It is definitely not award winning material; even for a TV movie the plot is rather predictable, most of the talent is ho hum(Poitier does a nice job as the stoic Noah), etc. But, it is an enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours enjoying a simple story with your family and (for me) makes you think of how far some of our values have gotten off whack. That said, I think the movie is propaganda from Mother Earth News for self sufficient and back to the country living...my friends and I were joking about this for the first half hour of the movie, but we think the hypothesis was tested when the lawyer quit to start a vineyard. It was also nice to see on screen techniques of woodworking that have all but vanished in the "enlightened" 20th century. Like I said, nice.