Hope

The story is made of movies we've seen or we think we saw. Motherless girl in the South (kinda here), has a weird boy for a friend, befriends a black man (sorta), seeks to unveil secret from the past, rides her bicycle, lives with a cooky aunt and strict racist cheating uncle, visits a wacky grownup neighbor, goes up a dusty-and-memory-infested attic, hides in a closet. There are also: Voice Over in the beginning and the end, cop arrests black man for no reason, black kid dies in an avoidable accident, black church gospel.

Set in 1962's fear the Russians will bomb the US, it seems, as too often about TV movies, the movie would have been better with the same characters but different story. The actors do liven up their molded characters. Jane Malone successfully carries the movie on her shoulder, Christine Lahti is -for once- bearable, J.T. Walsh was nominated for an Emmy because he died after filming, Catherine O'Hara, Kevin Jamall Woods and Jeffery D. Sams are wonderful.

So- script could be better, the acting is good, and lovely Goldie does tend to cliche-shots, at the end the camera backs from the church, out the window, trees, sky, credits- this IS mediocre!