The main draw of 'Right of Way' is the two stars, wonderful actors in James Stewart and Bette Davis both responsible for some of the all-time great screen performances (namely George Bailey in 'It's A Wonderful Life' and Margo Channing in 'All About Eve') in many very good and more films. Another big draw is the subject 'Right of Way' explores, it's a brave subject and an important and relevant one.
'Right of Way' is interesting, thoughtful and has emotional impact, but doesn't see the best of either Stewart or Davis while not wasting them. The same applies for the subject of suicide pacts and euthanasia, handled intriguingly enough and hardly trivialised but could have been explored more and in a way more tactfully in places.
It is agreed that 'Right of Way' does suffer from lack of realism in parts, namely again agreed the actions of the daughter Ruda after being told of the couple's plan. The supporting characters are one-dimensional, patchily acted and written with little subtlety or plausibility, the social worker being the worst offender. A shame because it is such a relevant, important and real situation, but those misjudgements cheapened the impact somewhat.
Didn't buy the ending either, there was a sense that the writers and producers didn't know how to end so instead tacked one on. Momentum sags towards the end.
However, Davis and Stewart are excellent, they are the reason to see 'Right of Way', with a preference for the more restrained Stewart (at his most restrained ever perhaps). Davis is quite moving though and commands the screen whenever she appears, and if it is true that Davis was difficult to work with and she and Stewart spent little time together off screen their chemistry on screen didn't come over as distant. Melinda Dillon has a hard role to pull off, and she does pull it off, despite some of her actions she was not an unsympathetic character and she was not hard to relate to.
Beautifully filmed 'Right of Way' is too, while the script is thought-provoking and just about avoids over-sentimentality with touches of understated drollness and some very tender and poignant moments. Particularly a scene between Mrs Dwyer and Ruda. The story does absorb and move, didn't feel that much indifference in the handling of the topic and when there was realism it was sensitive and has one reaching for the tissues.
Summing up, interesting and moving but deals with a topic/subject that it could have gone into depth more. 7/10 Bethany Cox
