Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Jenni Devyn Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

vincentlynch-moonoi Although I've always been aware of Marjorie Rawlings, I never read one of her books. I did see the movie "The Yearling", but didn't care much for it. Nevertheless I rather enjoyed this film.I know there's been a criticism that Mary Steenburgen didn't look like Rawlings. Well sorry, reviewer, Marjorie Main wasn't available. I think Steenburgen did justice to the story; I enjoyed her in the role.Rip Torn, who I've liked at some periods in his career, and not liked so much in other periods, was darned good here. It's quite a different role for him, and yet he was rather convincing as a backwater hick.I'm not much of a fan for Peter Coyote, but every once in a while he was rather pleasing in a film...and he is in this one. Dana Hill was quite a popular child actress, but I wasn't impressed here. She was okay, but nothing special. I was disappointed with Alfre Woodard. I rather like Woodard, and here I was unable to get a sense of her as an actress.I enjoyed the setting here. My mother used to live in central Florida, and although I never had the desire to live there, I always thought "old Florida" was quite beautiful.Marjorie Rawlings or not, I enjoyed this movie.

Ruby Liang (ruby_fff) "Cross Creek" the 1983 Martin Ritt film tells the story of feisty author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, how she came to be attached to Cross Creek in Alachua County, Florida. The script by Dalene Young, based on Rawlings' own memoirs, along with engaging music by Leonard Rosenman, do at times seem like a Hallmark TV movie, yet a Martin Ritt film is never without poignancy, contrasting elements of conflicts and choice decisions. Thought-provoking drama, emotional highs and lows, not forgetting dashes of humor (be it in brief exchanges between key characters, or bemused scenes that'd elicit a smile from you) and jolting dark moments that's part of living - it's a Ritt movie, alright.What a talented cast assembled: the Alfre Woodard's Geechie scenes opposite Miss Rawlings, played by Mary Steenburgen, gave us the exceptional camaraderie rare at such time and place of the '40s; the confrontational yet congenial Rip Torn's Marsh Turner encounters could be heart-wrenching at times and whimsical at another; the tender and vulnerable segments with Dana Hill's portrayal of 14-year old Ellie Turner facing her Pa (Rip Torn) over the keeping of the fawn (the yearling) are memorable; the simultaneously comfortable and contradictory feelings when Marjorie and Peter Coyote's Norton Baskin meet at their varying circumstantial moments - what a treat to watch their facial expressions and sensitive performances. The nuance acting did not stop with the four key roles, as the supporting cast that included Paul (Ike Eisenmann), Mrs. Turner (Joanna Miles), Tim's wife (Toni Hudson - the scene of Marjorie visiting her and the new baby did momentarily remind me of the 1979 w-d Victor Nunez' small gem of the film "Gal Young 'Un"), the Turner children, however small the role may be, had made "Cross Creek" whole.The opening credits included a frame thanking Mr. Norton Baskin (Rawling's second husband who survived Marjorie by 44 years till 1997) for his assistance in the preparation and production of the film. In the 17-minute featurette "Cross Creek: A Look Back with Mary Steenburgen" on the DVD (distributed 2002 by Anchor Bay Entertainment and Studio Canal), when asked if the film was true in depicting Rawlings at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival, Baskin responded favorably, "it's as close as you can get." We see the various moods and aspects of Marjorie, be it tempestuous, headstrong, or sheer charming, especially when the subject is food and cooking.And it is absolutely true, "Cross Creek" the film wouldn't have been (existed) if not for cinematographer John A. Alonzo's supremely enchanting camera-work. The bayou marsh vegetation scenes, the trees and reflections in the waters, the sky and clouds mirrored in the river surface, the natural nature scenes that are very much Cross Creek's own in the rain, wind and sun - we are blessed by Alonzo's cinematic artistry and craftsmanship. Excerpt quoting of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings': "Who owns Cross Creek? The earth may be borrowed, not bought; may be used, not owned; it gives itself in response to love and tenderness, offers its seasonal flowering and fruiting." This is a guarantee of worthwhile viewing, indeed. As Mary Steenburgen pointed out in her featurette on the DVD, "Cross Creek" the film included a 'bonus' 20-second cameo appearance of Norton Baskin in person at the beginning (about 7 minutes into the film) - catch it if you can.

bkoganbing Film fans best know the work of Marjorie Kiniston Rawlings through the adaption of her best known work The Yearling and the later filming of an original story for the screen in The Sun Comes Up. Cross Creek is our opportunity to look inside the mind and character of the woman who was the creator of these classics.As played beautifully by Mary Steenburgen, we meet Rawlings during the Twenties as a woman with a passion to go to the land and a burning desire to write. She's been submitting potboiler romance novels to publishers who keep telling her to reach for her soul in her writings.Steenburgen divorces her husband and moves to some Florida swamp land which she by dint of her own hard work and the help of neighbors, she turns into a decent patch for an orange grove. One of them, storekeeper Peter Coyote, evinces more than a neighborly interest.It's her letters from her town of Cross Creek that excite Steenburgen's potential publisher, Malcolm McDowell, the simple lives and dignity of her neighbors with all their flaws. Especially neighbor Rip Torn and his family, they become the models for the characters in The Yearling.Cross Creek earned Academy Award nominations for Rip Torn as Best Supporting Actor and Alfre Woodard playing a black woman who Steenburgen takes in and works for her. Cross Creek also got nominations for Best Music Score and Costume Design. Why Mary Steenburgen wasn't nominated for Best Actress is a mystery.One really ought to see Cross Creek back to back with The Sun Comes Up which was Rawlings original work for the screen and was Jeanette MacDonald's last film. Seeing Cross Creek puts a lot of The Sun Comes Up in context with MacDonald's character and with how Rawlings is interpreted by Steenburgen. Both films will take on a new dimension if anyone has not seen the other.Cross Creek is one excellent piece of film making about the genesis of a great American writer.

bandw This biography of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (author of "The Yearling") covers her early career from her move to the rural Florida town of Cross Creek until she found her voice as an author and began being published.I felt Mary Steenburgen was miscast. To survive the hardships that Rawlings had to overcome in getting her dilapidated house in order and turning her orange grove into a successful operation would imply that she was a pretty tough woman, both physically and mentally. When we see Steenburgen pitching in to clear tree roots and logs from a waterway she moves and acts more like a demure woman who would be more comfortable in fashionable society, and when she expresses anger one does not feel daunted by it in the least - it's like she is just reading her lines. Steenburgen's slight performance is unfortunate since the entire supporting cast is quite good and Rip Torn is magnificent in his portrayal of Marsh Turner, a feisty and colorful local. Torn breaths such life into the formidable but kindly Turner that I found myself just waiting out the times between his appearances. A woman of equal power to match Turner (as I am sure the real Rawlings must have been) would have raised this film above the average. Someone like Kathyrn Hepburn or Judi Dench would have been good for this part. The photography of rural 1930s Florida and the lush bayous was well done, as were the period details of dress and autos. There are memorable and touching scenes, like the one where Rawlings' housekeeper Geegee (Alfre in a fine performance) comes close to leaving. And the scenes involving the yearling in this movie are tremendously more powerful than they were in the movie "The Yearling."Why certain real life facts were altered that would have made the story more believable and interesting is puzzling. In the movie we have Steenburgen announcing at an upscale New York party, seemingly out of nowhere, that she is going to move to Florida to manage an orange grove and, if her husband does not want to come with her, then that's the end of the marriage. In truth she purchased the land using an inheritance from her mother and her husband moved there with her. In short order her husband decided he could not take it and went back to New York.All in all I did not get a feeling that I got to know the real Rawlings and, for that matter, the person Steenburgen was playing did not seem real to me.