Award Season

It's Academy Award Season.  One of the fun things about this time of year is watching old movies of winners and losers.  My favorite so far is the 1968 classic, The Subject Was Roses.

It has the stilted feel of a play-made-into-a-movie, but is a powerful film in many ways.  Three years after a massive stroke left Patricia Neal in a coma for 21 days, Neal appeared as the mother in the movie.  You can see the pain of her life on her face and she has a very slight limp that adds to her sad beauty.

Based on a Pulitzer Price-winning play, The Subject Was Roses, also stars a very young Martin Sheen who won a Tony Award for his role as Timmy on Broadway.  Jack Albertson plays the dad and won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor as well as winning a Tony for his work on Broadway, were he starred along with Sheen.

The story centers on World War II veteran Timmy Cleary's return home after three years in the army.  He's changed, but his parent haven't.  Old disappointments and years of hurt surface between them with Timmy in the middle, only this time, Timmy sees himself and his parents through mature eyes.  The dynamic in the family has shifted as the sensitive young man and his long-suffering parents grapple with their lives and the changes in relationships that must come. Beautifully written and exquisitely acted, The Subject Was Roses is stunning in it's old fashioned storytelling power.