There's a decency about this movie that's almost palpable. It's not trying to pump us up with false jingoism or the sins of the past. Jewison, a Canadian, probably approaches the entire subject with a mediatory mood.
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In Country
Overview
Samantha Hughes, a teenaged Kentucky girl, never knew her father, who died in Vietnam before her birth. Samantha lives with her uncle Emmett, who also served in Vietnam. Emmett hangs around with Tom, Earl, and Pete, three other Vietnam vets who, like Emmett, all have problems of one kind or another that relate to their war experiences. Samantha becomes obsessed with finding out about her father.
Director and cast
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
In essence, In Country is a well-turned variation on the quest to find a father that shows up in the folk tales of almost any culture.
The scene at the memorial is one of the film's best, but director Jewison fails to find in it anything close to the level of emotional force that the same scene in Mason's book has.
This is no tribute to the war dead, but an unthinking betrayal of them -- they've been drafted again, this time to supply a climax to a second-rate tearjerker.
Norman Jewison usually is a commanding storyteller, but In Country is a film with two stories that fail to add up to something greater.
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