Shadrach

Harvey Keitel makes every movie he is in special. Miss MacDowell is still one sexy lady no matter how you dress her down. This was a class movie all the way. A fine lesson in humanity for all. A rainy day was not waisted here.

A great movie based on the short story by William Styron, himself a native of the Virginia Tidewater, where the movie and story take place. I found the film very moving and accurate in its depiction of eastern Virginia during the Depression era-Styron based the short story on an actual childhood experience of his. Also I found the scenery and way in which it was composed especially noteworthy. The setting was just perfect and outstanding in every regard (ancient Live Oak and Cypress trees). All in all, a very good film, good effort was put into it and it shows.

This movie has been praised for excellent performances and authentic settings. The direction of the visuals was great. But the pacing is too slow. Too steady. When is the climax of this movie? Is it when Shadrach dies? Or when he is buried as he wished on Dabney land? The plot drifts and plods along until it runs out of film. Still a nice, sentimental story. Worth watching but misses greatness.

In the South I grew up in, many if not most Whites viewed Blacks paternally, they weren't at all rabid lynchers. They felt a responsibility for their employees and families. The Dabneys are an old tidewater plantation family that fell on hard times after the Civil War and moved to North Carolina but have managed to hold on to the old Virginia property. Shadrach, a former slave who was sold south by Dabney's grandfather around 1860, just before the war, shows up at the Dabney's Wilmington NC house, having walked there from Alabama. He wants to be buried on Dabney land. The story takes place about 1935, making Shadrach close to 90 years old. The Dabneys honor Shadrach's wishes because they have to. This adaptation hews pretty closely to Styron's short story until the second half, when a plot element is added to create a conflict and to stretch the story. Unfortunately, the reason given is invalid. Virginia is full of old family plots on private land, and as long as the owner of the land consents, anyone can be buried there. This is still a good, small film, and the portrayals are dead on, especially Andie MacDowell. I think every one of us who comes from the South knew the Dabneys.

Expanded from the short story of the same name from the little book "A Tidewater Morning" by William Styron, Shadrach is a wonderful film. If you haven't read the short-short story, you are in for a treat. When we are young, we feel a pull to leave; when we are old we are pulled back to where we came from. To walk from Alabama to Virginia to be buried where you grew up. A 100 year old former slave. That's a story.

"Shadrach" was not my favorite type of movie. I found it overly sentimental and the acting was below par. Harvey Keitel and Andie MacDowell were good but some of the other actors weren't at all believable. I also did not believe that Paul's parents would go away and leave him with the Dabney family, especially when they had a housekeeper living in the home. Their social classes were too far apart to consider this believable. It seemed the Dabney's lifestyle was too exaggerated. There was a scene in the beginning of the movie that showed Andie MacDowell getting out of a car after having sex with someone. Who was it? Her son? What was the scene supposed to show us? Why was the scene even included? It had nothing to do with the rest of the movie and was in fact never alluded to again. It seemed gratuitous and not fitting into the story at all. There were too many inconsistencies in the movie for me. The story concerning Shadrach was nice but I wasn't convinced that the Dabneys would have been as kind and generous as they were portrayed.

How refreshing it is to see a movie about northeastern North Carolina-southeastern Virginia that could actually have been filmed in the area and that features people who could actually have lived here! Well, it was a bit hard to believe that after living a hard life and birthing that many children, Andie McDowell's character would still look young, thin, and pretty. If I thought it would make me look like that, I'd take up drinking beer. Amazingly, Harvey Keitel is believable as the irascible father, and his accent is even tolerable. Perhaps what is amazing is his versatility as an actor, since he was also believable as Baines in "The Piano," Auggie in "Smoke" and "Blue in the Face," the police detective in "Thelma and Louise," and all those heavies in all those gangster films. What should you expect if you view this film? A glimpse at what this part of the world looked like before WWII and farm-to-market roads and typhoid shots and birth control; a child's-eye view of growing up in a rural family in the Depression; a story about doing what's right. I liked it.

OK it looks nice, and in Keitel and MacDowell it has two solid actors as leads. In the end though it is a rather tired, and illogical, attempt at spinning a southern yarn, set in the depression, about a large brood, and an old black man who returns to the family of his former owners to die. The idea is fine, but the execution is lazy. Keitel is supposed to be a 'diamond in the rough', the kind of character who appears gruff and uncouth, but who at heart cares about people. This is portrayed by having him say 'god damn' and 'sh*t' in every single sentence. MacDowell is supposed to be an overworked, harrased mother of many. This is portrayed by having her drink beer in every single scene, and say 'suge' in every single sentence. This leads to an awful lot of this... Husband: God Damn, sh*t, I ain't got time to be burying some old black man. Wife: Calm down suge, have a beer. It tries, it really does, and i is certainly not a bad movie, but it has very little to offer beyond a simple story, decent actors, and some wonderful locations.