Well, TCM doesn't get to show many Brad Pitt movies, so I'm sure they're glad they can get their hands on this one. While the two romantic leads, Craig Sheffer and cute-as-a-button 22-year-old Emily Lloyd, have been forgotten, you can just see Pitt's white-hot ascent to stardom taking place in this movie, along with his other early performances.
And what a part for him. It runs the gamut - his character is always the most dashing, charming guy in the room but also vulnerable, fiercely proud and deeply troubled. This movie is very watchable and re-watchable; I've probably seen it close to a dozen times. But I'm still not sure I get what the message is supposed to be. Tom Skerritt's preacher tries to teach his sons to find grace and to reconnect with their inner selves after dealing with the chaos of the material world by losing themselves in the rhythms of fly fishing. And Pitt's younger son absorbs the lesson and surpasses the teacher, becoming a transcendent genius of the art. But he doesn't learn any of the reverend's other lessons and is doomed for tragedy, partially bringing that doom upon himself by refusing offers of financial help or the chance to relocate to another city where his enemies would probably never find him.
Sheffer's older son, on the other hand, is only an okay fly fisherman but is more in tune with his father's plan for navigating life otherwise, and he ends up with a beautiful wife and children and a fulfilling job and happiness. So, how important is fly fishing to all this exactly?
Everyone in the cast is great, especially Skerritt and Brenda Blethyn as the parents. I would like to give special attention to Nicole Burdette, who plays the small but moving role of Mabel. She could have practically had her own movie, but instead has to show in just a couple of scenes what it was like to be Native American in Missoula in the 1920s, not much different than what it was like to be black in the Deep South at the same time. Mabel has no patience for intolerance, and she's rowdy and out of control, but she also wants to sublimate her identity with an Anglicized name and considers bobbing her hair to look more like the white flappers. We sense she's had a hard life, but she also beams like a little girl when Lloyd's Jessie tells her how pretty her hair is. This actress' imdb biography is whisper-thin. I don't even know if she's actually Native American. You still saw white people getting parts like that sometimes even as late as the early '90s. But she does a great job.
And what a part for him. It runs the gamut - his character is always the most dashing, charming guy in the room but also vulnerable, fiercely proud and deeply troubled. This movie is very watchable and re-watchable; I've probably seen it close to a dozen times. But I'm still not sure I get what the message is supposed to be. Tom Skerritt's preacher tries to teach his sons to find grace and to reconnect with their inner selves after dealing with the chaos of the material world by losing themselves in the rhythms of fly fishing. And Pitt's younger son absorbs the lesson and surpasses the teacher, becoming a transcendent genius of the art. But he doesn't learn any of the reverend's other lessons and is doomed for tragedy, partially bringing that doom upon himself by refusing offers of financial help or the chance to relocate to another city where his enemies would probably never find him.
Sheffer's older son, on the other hand, is only an okay fly fisherman but is more in tune with his father's plan for navigating life otherwise, and he ends up with a beautiful wife and children and a fulfilling job and happiness. So, how important is fly fishing to all this exactly?
Everyone in the cast is great, especially Skerritt and Brenda Blethyn as the parents. I would like to give special attention to Nicole Burdette, who plays the small but moving role of Mabel. She could have practically had her own movie, but instead has to show in just a couple of scenes what it was like to be Native American in Missoula in the 1920s, not much different than what it was like to be black in the Deep South at the same time. Mabel has no patience for intolerance, and she's rowdy and out of control, but she also wants to sublimate her identity with an Anglicized name and considers bobbing her hair to look more like the white flappers. We sense she's had a hard life, but she also beams like a little girl when Lloyd's Jessie tells her how pretty her hair is. This actress' imdb biography is whisper-thin. I don't even know if she's actually Native American. You still saw white people getting parts like that sometimes even as late as the early '90s. But she does a great job.