One of Horton Foote's best stories, beautifully adapted to the screen. A very gentle movie reminding one of what life used to be.
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Wonderful . . .
Added 6/25/2008
In the events of one summer evening, a young woman comes to a decision that will change her life. During the course of this wonderful play by Horton Foote, we get a glimpse of a solid middle class family in a small Texas town. The year is 1915 and Victorian mores rule as a patriarchal father attempts to rein in the emotional yearnings of his daughter, who has fallen in love with a young man he does not approve of. Ever polite and respectful, her face a mask of composure, she reveals in long conversations with her sister and the young man courting her the inclinations of her heart and the uncertainty she experiences in judging whether the heart should guide one's most important choices and actions. Meanwhile, dance music floats in on the evening air, belying the turmoil of small-town melodrama that swirls around them in gossip about others, past and present, for whom affairs of the heart have gone awry or fully wrong.
Foote's play has been brought lovingly and faithfully to the screen. The long dialogues and monologues are magical in how they reflect the inner conflicts, the emotional negotiations made and unmade, and especially the graceful awkwardness of the two young lovers as they gently reveal their affection for each other on the front porch of her house, very much aware of the displeased father who roams the rooms inside. Like Foote's other plays, this one is for lovers of the spoken word and the theatre. I certainly loved every minute of it.
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Suppose he doesn't love you and is just infatuated.....
Added 5/19/2007
Horton Foote is a playwright and screenwriter of the gentlest, most powerful kind. His beginnings in small town Texas has informed most all of his writing ever since. He has written for broadway, live television and hollywood. He wrote the amazing screenplay for "To Kill A Mockingbird" based on Harper Lee's book. He wrote the films "Tender Mercies" and "Trip to Bountiful" (based on his play) He's won the Pultzer Prize for his play "Young Man From Atlanta" (1995). Many of his plays have ended up on video/dvd and "Courtship" is one of them. It was first shown on PBS.
There is a series of plays written by Mr. Foote called "The Orphan's Home Cycle". Nine terrific plays, gentle and rewarding individually...put them together and you have a gorgeous epic that spans decades. The plays follow a boy named Horace from childhood to adulthood.
The middle three plays of this cycle are: "Courtship", "Valentine's Day" and "1918" and are all on DVD and available on Amazon.
"Courtship" takes place in Texas of 1915 and tells the story of Horace as he courts Elizabeth. (Played beautifully by Horton's daughter). As we hear Elizabeth and her sister (played by the wonderfully quirky Amanda Plummer) talk of what's happening in the town around them and the old fashioned patriarchal presence of their parents overshadow the proceedings, it becomes difficult for Elizabeth to make a decision that will please her parents, her sister, Horace and herself. The delicate way the subjects of love, danger, security and family roam in and out of the dialouge is very moving. "Courtship" stands alone as an amazing timepiece. Put the film together with the next chapter, "On Valentine's Day" and then with "1918" and you have an amazing statement of life in small town America from 1915 to World War I. You have a dramatic poem about love and endurance. You also have an important document of Amercan theater by having a record of this great playwright's work come to life.
The same wonderful cast is in all three films, offering great continuity of performance and sparse, tender storytelling.
1918, On Valentine's Day, Tender Mercies, The Trip to Bountiful, Three Screenplays: To Kill a Mockingbird, Tender Mercies and The Trip to Bountiful (Foote, Horton), The Young Man From Atlanta.
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