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This is a very good-hearted, human and clear
film! This is a film for family seeing, the film about great love.
Timothy plays here a little supporting, but
a leading adult role of Lester Parnell, who lives in a little town or even
in an outport on the beach of ocean in the North Canadian province, which
surprisingly reminds me of our Russian one with it's timbered houses,
corrals, henhouses and another institutions of village life. Lester builds
boats for fishing and probably small ships. He grows his only daughter
Josephine (Katherine Isabelle). He grows her being single. He helps her to
realize her dream, respecting her interests, aims and desires.
Inspite of so tender age (in the movie she is
about 12-14 years old), Jo has already felt heartache: her mother drown in
the ocean waters when strong storm has happened in that place some years ago.
May be this is why Jo aims to help a lonely moose Charley, who lives on a
little island nearby. The moose went here, when during one cold winter the
strait between the island and the mainland has frozen hard. The girl decided
to catch somewhere in neighbourhood of her place one "lady"-moose and to
take her at the island to be a friend of lonely Charley. Using Lester's
notebook, Jo knew from the Internet, that a number of such animals can find
feeds on this island.
One boy by the name Bobby (Johnny Morina),
equal to Jo in age, becomes her faithful companion and cheerful helper in
this venture but Lester. Bobby spends his summer holydays, being a houseguest
of his grandmother, who lives here constantly. His mother Eva is here too.
She writes books with love stories for a living. (The scene, where Eva is
describing the steamy love scene, is well done by Lolita Davidovich!) Eva has
just divorsed with Bobby's father and the consequences of the action are
especially hard for the boy, who is now, in effect, an orphan, though his
father is alive.
The friendship with Jo helps Bobby to see, to
understand and to believe in a possibility of another relations in family,
the relations, based upon love and absolute trust, readiness to help and
ability to sacrifice parents placidity to give the growing child a chance to
approve himself and make the others to believe in him.
In a word, here Tim plays a role of "a man of
dream" again, now this one may be a dream of a child, but his part contains
another colours and features. His Lester is back-countryman, a man of the
people. His external appearance, walking, manners and, it seems to me, his
soul tells us about it. Could it be true,
HE WAS RHETT??? Not a hint remained
of the screen lover of irresistible attraction, the man-allurer, who is
always and everywhere welcome!
You will keep in mind the scenes, where Lester
imitates a call of lonely moose, makes a meal for children, convinces Eva
to permit Bobby to do the riskful travel to the island with "Lady"-moose
Beatrix, shows the boy, how he must pitch in baseball… "Your hand must be
like toothless mouth", - says Lester-Tim, enclasping his tooths with his
lips and making such a movement with his jaws, like the old men with detachable
jaws usually do. And you believe, that not only Bobby will digest the lesson,
but you yourself will take the ball with a right grip, if it will happened,
that you will play this game some day!
Timothy was very good in the scene near the
fire after storm, when he says: "We must sometimes fish together!". In these
words you can hear the joy after bygone danger, the acknowledgement of the
arising relations with Eva, the love to their children and hope for the
future …
You will keep in mind Lester during the sea
storm in the scene of Beatrix's salvage: that is where he could use Bondiana's
experience! By the way, the filming of this fragment took place in Ottava, in
the hydraulic laboratory of NRC's Montreal Road campus, which leases out it's
equipment for moviemakers and their needs. So to say, the scientific and art
modelling use the same technique and no one minute of it's stopping!
"A crew of 65 descended on the Lab for almost
a week to shoot several nighttime sequences. To set the scene, the crew
rigged the wave basin with black curtains, overhead lighting, piping for rain,
giant wind fans and lighting generators. An array of 30 eyebolls and cables
in the floor of the basin permitted divers to move such props as the lobster
boat, moose, raft and even rock as required.
… With wave basins, towing tanks, cold
chambers, wind tunnels and computers, NRC has great facilities and expertise
for simulating natural environments.." - there were the story about filming
of "The Salt Water Moose" on the Internet site of NRC. I have found this
article in April of 1998
(http:// www/ corpserv.nrc.ca/corpserv/sphere/s_950555e/html).
Don't think of this movie, that it costed
it's creators a lot of money - only 3 million dollars! The shoestring budget!
Though for me, as a viewer, it is not of great importance. The name of the
game is that this film has succeeded and that fact was marked: it has
received the Director's Guild of America award for best Children's program
in 1997. And we have got a chance to see a good performance,
which you can watch many times, especially if you are ill, tired or cut-up,
and the successful actor's work - simultaneously. Crack on, Tim!
For those, who is interested in the plot
"Single parents and their children", besides the world-known film
"The Man and The Woman", we recommend to see "The One Fine Day" with
George Cluney and Michele Pfifer. You'll like it!
Ê.Å., 1999
Order in Amazon
[Genre]
[Character]
[Chronology]
[1960 - 70-th]
[80-th]
[90-th]
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