I really looked forward to watching this recently for the first time. I was squirming in my seat much of the time, sort
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DianneBellmont — 15 years ago(September 23, 2010 02:19 PM)
Mary Ellen rants and raves like that in "The Homecoming." I am thankful my teens never ranted and raved. I guess I made up for it having fits with them as lively grade schoolers and they just didn't want to act that way, but yeah, some teen girls have all that pent up rage.
*The shape-shifter is in and will take your calls now. -
TanteWaileka — 13 years ago(September 12, 2012 03:26 PM)
I totally agree with you. I have NEVER understood how ANYONE could rate this movie more than a '2', and what HUBRIS to have a 27 year old WOMAN attempt to play a 12 year old girl and she did a TERRIBLE JOB AT IT TOO, BUT what could one expect??
Life is a journey not a destination. Fear nothing. -
jcb-nyc — 12 years ago(January 30, 2014 02:09 PM)
Here's how it happened: The three principal players were in the original Broadway production. It's much easier for an adult to portray a child on stage, since the audience can't see the lines and wrinkles from where they're sitting.
Later, when they cast the parts for the film, they just kept the same actors. They didn't think anyone would care about the age difference, since nobody cared in the theater. (BTW, there are a few publicity stills from the stage production out there, and in some of them, Julie Harris really does look like a young girl.) -
MStephenmir — 11 years ago(February 25, 2015 08:49 PM)
Perhaps the realism of the settings and film medium makes it harder to accept a mature actress playing a twelve year old, but I've never been convinced that the author was writing about a typical child if, indeed, such a child exists. The opening lines set the tone and one has a sense of the author, now older, looking back at herself. Frankie is odd, a kind of old soul living in a young body, and though the ending suggests resolution of a kind, it happens so fast that one doesn't have a chance to recognize that it is, given the time span, probably improbable. At least the psychological changes portrayed would take many more years to achieve. Thankfully, Frankie slips away and the scene is given back to Ethel Water's Bernice whose final soulful expression tells us much more. I've seen younger actresses play the part but, oddly, it doesn't seem to work. The language is too elevated and lyrical"the we of me"and so on. Harris captures the mood and she, De Wilde and Waters play off of one another that, to my ears, sounds musical if not realistic. There certainly could be an actress who is age appropriate who could bring the necessary depth and nuance to the part, but I have yet to see one and I'm glad that the producers decided to go with the play's original cast if for no other reason than to preserve performances that became legendary.