Run the Wild Fields

This film held my interest to the very end with fine performances by Joanne Whalley, Sean Patrick Flanery, Alexa Vega, and Cotter Smith. It reminded me of two other excellent films. The movie is narrated by the young daughter, Opal, but in retrospect using her now grown up voice, similar to Scout, Gregory Peck's daughter in To Kill a Mockingbird, and Opal's character is nearly as appealing. Also this film reminds me of Places in the Heart, with a "single woman" trying to manage a farm without her husband present and necessarily bringing people together to save the farm. This film has Flanery as Tom the drifter invited to help Joanne Whalley with the farm, as Danny Glover and John Malkovich helped Sally Field in Places in the Heart.

Having identified those similarities, the film stands well on its own and I appreciated the dramatic tension of several plot lines which did resolve in less predictable ways, and left me feeling better about the movie watching experience by avoiding predictable plot development. I won't "spoil" the movie by disclosing the specific plot issues in this review. The movie allowed me to appreciate the lead characters as I got to know them better in the events of the film. I would rate this one 8 out of 10 and recommend it with enthusiasm.