October 29, 1999
The Straight Story
By Peter M. Nichols
| PARENTAL NOTES|
Related Review on The New York Times on the Web:
An Unlikely Filmmaker Takes on a G-Rated Challenge
VIOLENCE None in the usual sense, but a deer is hit by a car and there's one brush with danger when the mower's brakes fail on a steep hill and send Alvin racing, so to speak, into town.
FOOTNOTE Almost eerily in a movie by Mr. Lynch (''Blue Velvet,'' ''Twin Peaks''), the only bizarre moment comes after the car hits the deer. Deeply distraught, the driver tells Alvin that no matter what warning she issues -- honking her horn, yelling out the window, banging on the car door -- she can't avoid hitting a deer every week on her drive to work. FOR WHICH CHILDREN?
UNDER AGE 12 A G-rated film by Mr. Lynch is almost occasion enough to take the little ones, especially a film as warmly rich and full of family values as this one. Unfortunately, it moves very slowly.
AGES 12 AND UP O.K., on the face of it a movie about an old man and his lawn mower has little appeal to teen-agers. This one, though, could grab hold with viewers willing to suspend themselves for a short while (the 110-minute length is tolerable) and settle in with Alvin (a true winner), not to mention a finely wrought film in every respect.
''What the gol darn are you doing lying on the floor?'' a friend asks the elderly Alvin Straight (Mr. Farnsworth), whom he finds unable to rise from the kitchen linoleum one afternoon. Taken to the clinic by his retarded daughter, Rosie (Ms. Spacek), Alvin learns what he knows already: his hips are gone, his eyes are going, diabetes threatens and he's in the early stages of emphysema.
Time to lay off the cigars and braunschweiger. But Alvin is a stubborn fellow. When he learns that his estranged brother, Lyle (Mr. Stanton), has had a stroke, he determines to go see him. Denied a driver's license because of his eyesight, he decides to drive anyway -- on his rider lawn mower.
Alvin lives in Iowa, Dean in Wisconsin. The mower, hauling a homemade trailer with a few belongings, goes three or four miles per hour. All day Alvin chugs along the shoulder of the two-lane road. At night he pulls off into the fields and sleeps under the stars. An open, gracious man, he charms everyone he meets with his gentle humanity, self-sufficiency and determination to finish the trip the way he started it.
As the journey proceeds, so does the story of Alvin Straight: his boyhood, his experiences as a sniper in World War II, his marriage and 14 children (seven of whom survived), his resilience, sagacity and love of family. The mower gives out on several occasions, but never Alvin.Richard Farnsworth, Sissy Spacek, Wiley Harker, Harry Dean Stanton
Directed by David Lynch
G 110 minutesAbout the Family Movie Guide.