Four male writers couldn't hang any of this film together in spite of some great old stars (Louise Fletcher, Genevieve Bujold) who try their best with a leaden script and subversive fundamentalist messages.
Clichés? Let me count the ways. I believe I've never been privy to so many in this one loooooong contrived movie that must have gone straight to DVD. It wouldn't survive a Friday night at the local Odeon.
Traumatic event in childhood conveniently forgotten by the star - who by the way has to be one of the most irritating actresses ever, she ran the gamut of emotions from A to B to quote a famous critic. She squeaks her lines and does a lot of batting with the eyes. Awful to watch her.
The granddaughter is forbidden to see the grandmother as an eleven year old child but then makes no effort to see her as an adult even though she professes undying love for her? She behaves like a receptionist in her "high career" in New York, excited over her birthday and her new boyfriend, her "boss". The audience is not privy to what everyone does for a living. It is strictly so she can give up her career (in that "fundy" way) to settle down and get over that nonsense.
The caretaker-sculptor turns out to have invested in Microsoft when he was twelve (doesn't everybody?) and is now wealthy but living as a boatman/bum.
The secret was not getting worked up into a froth over. Fisticuffs a plenty and the oddest, strained dialogue. Squeaky clean too. She accuses her boss of travelling all the way to Maine so he could "jump her". Man that spun me sideways before I burst out laughing. "Jump"? Wha'? I've never heard a woman use that term. Guys, yes.
And it goes on and on and on and on and on. Each cliché heavier than the one before it until it collapses, whimpering, under the pro-life ending.
I gave it 2 out of 10. The scenery and the inn are truly lovely and so is the haunting music.
