| |
Connie Hope: Me, I'm divorced twice. No kids, fortunately. I guess, fortunately.
|
Ulysses Ulee Jackson: We don't ask outsiders for help.
|
Ulysses Ulee Jackson: The bees and I have an understanding. I take care of them, and they take care of me.
|
Penny Jackson: See, sometimes the bees get confused, and run away -- that's them there on the tree. But they don't really want to be gone, and they're happy when someone holds them back into they're home. But you got to keep calm and don't panic when they sting, 'cause they don't mean nothing by it.
|
Connie Hope: You are almost a good man, Ulee Jackson, but you try too hard.
|
Ulysses Ulee Jackson: There's all kinds of weakness in the world, not all of it is evil. I forget that from time to time.
|
Ulee Jackson: You'll pay for the rest of your life for being a jackass.
Casey Jackson: Yeah, well, it's better than dying of boredom.
|
Description
Sometimes a man's true strength lies in his power to grow from the forces that sting the heart and cut deep into the soul. Peter Fonda (Easy Rider), in 'the performance of his career (Newsweek), received a Best Actor Golden Globe and an Academy Award(r) nomination* for his portrayal of a man who escapes one war only to find himself at battle with an even greater enemyhis wounded spirit. Featuring an uncommonly fine cast (Rolling Stone), Ulee's Gold comes wonderfully close to magic (Los Angeles Times)! Third-generation Florida beekeeper UleeJackson (Fonda) may have gotten out of Vietnam alive, but he left a part of himself behind. Now he methodically tends his bees, carefully provides for those who need him and vigilantly keeps his emotions at bay. But when both his family and his livelihood are threatened by a long-buried secret, Ulee must break through his emotional walls, find the strength to change and begin life anew. *1997: Actor
Amazon.com
Director Victor Nunez's richly photographed Ulee's Gold drew critical acclaim for Peter Fonda's and Patricia Richardson's subtle performances--and premiered as the Festival Centerpiece in 1997's Sundance Film Festival. Vividly photographed and set amid southern Florida's tupelo swamps, the film's narrative hinges on the evolution of a more-than-platonic connection between neighbors Ulysses, Ulee for short (Fonda), and Connie (Richardson). Known for her role on TV's Home Improvement, Richardson makes a satisfying foray into film with this appropriately smaller role where she manages to hatch out of potential typecasting. Fonda's independent, stubborn, and reserved Ulee anchors the narrative. He is a bee keeper whose struggling small business is all that keeps him focused in the wake of his wife Penelope's death, his daughter-in-law Helen's (Christine Dunford) drug addiction, and the de facto single-parent obligations he takes on to his adolescent granddaughters. (Notice the Homeric references.) Soon the plot twists, however, in the sociopathy of Eddie and Ferris, friends of Ulee's jailed son--a sociopathy that is also the impetus for the family to confront its dysfunction and for Connie and Ulee to see more in each other than mere neighborliness. Thankfully, Nunez foregoes the bathos of a Hollywood ending and leaves us satisfied on one hand with Helen's healing and Eddie's justice but uncertain, though hopeful, about Ulee's next step. --Erik Macki
|
|