Starring Don Johnson, Melanie Griffith, Elijah Wood and Thora Birch
I’ve found this little gem of a movie by accident. I think, mostly due to the fact that it featured 10-year old Elijah Wood, than anything else. But after watching it I’ve come to really appreciate this unpretentious little drama as one of those movies of the earlier days which you can watch over and over and never tired of it, because of the good story and great actors.
A single mother of 10-year old Willard (Elijah Wood), pregnant with the second child, decides to send him for the summer to her old and dear friend Lily, who lives in the country. Willard’s father, her boyfriend, seems to have left her for another woman and she needs some time to sort out her thoughts and prepare for birth without presence of her older son. More…The boy is shy and does not have many friends in a highly privileged school where he was admitted on a scholarship due to his talents and high IQ, rather than his family money. The summer in a village does not sound cool at all to him, a city boy from Philadelphia. But the mother is not backing down and soon they are taking the bus to a sleepy little town in South Carolina. She’s leaving Willard in care of Lily and goes back to Philadelphia, but what she does not know is that Lily and her husband Ben had suffered a great tragedy a few years back, when their little son had unexpectedly died.
Willard senses the tension in the house and an odd attitude in Ben’s relationship with Lily, but he does not immediately know the reason of this tension between his hosts. Ben is almost never there, but when he is the strain of their relationship is palpable. Meanwhile Willard meets a new friend – a tomboy Billie, a smart, talkative, charming, but a bit reckless 9-year old girl, who invites Willard to be her friend and so they start hanging around together, sometimes almost getting into trouble through the mischief instigated by Billie.
Willard is also getting closer to Ben through their mutual love to aviation and fishing. Willard cherishes his father and believes he went away temporarily, but it is clear that Ben is becoming a sort of surrogate father to him. Billie is also a daughter of a single mother – unfortunately, the one obsessed with the idea of getting married again by any cost, – but she thinks she knows who her father is and frequently goes to the roller-skating park to look at him as she believes he’s the instructor there.
Thawed by Willard’s presence in the house Ben, who has been practically estranged from Lily, because of her, not his wishes, is trying to bridge the divide. One attempt is ending in a disastrous row over the deceased baby’s belongings, where Ben is trying to convince Lily that their son is dead, but he is still alive and near her and he also needs her love and help in healing. That’s when he finds about the reason for Lily’s behavior – but can they overcome the secrets from the past to finally be together again?
At the same time Billie, wounded the events happening in her life, in turn deals a blow to Willard, telling him that his adorable father has left them for good. My eyes were glued to the screen watching the further events unfold and, though the movie ended quite well in a regular Hollywood style, the great actors, both kiddies and adults, have been fascinating to watch.
As a matter of fact even the actors in the secondary roles have been great to watch, though I would probably have to search their names on the Internet as they are certainly not famous at all, but everyone was very much in their character. The 2 leading pairs, as mentioned before, were simply a treat for the eyes – the fresh and spontaneous acting of little Elijah Wood and Thora Birch was providing a sort of counterpoint to highly passionate and gloomy atmosphere between Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith in the roles of Ben and Lily.