Landscape is the biggest love in "Big Stone Gap'
Oct 11, 2015 7:08:58 GMT -5
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Post by Ripley on Oct 11, 2015 7:08:58 GMT -5
"...“Big Stone Gap” was shot in southwest Virginia, in the coal mining town that lends the film its name, and where writer- director Adriana Trigiani (author of the 2000 novel that inspired it) — grew up. Even if you didn’t know all this before seeing the film, there’s such a strong sense of place in the opening scenes — such palpable reverence for the hilly landscapes, mom-and-pop-shop main street and firework-like displays of fall foliage — that you can practically feel the Blue Ridge Mountain air in your lungs just by looking at the screen.
The warmth of spirit behind this project allows its missteps to be mostly forgiven. These include a plot that could easily be mistaken for the story line of a Hallmark Channel movie. “Big Stone Gap” opens by introducing us to Ave Maria Mulligan (Ashley Judd), a woman of Italian heritage who tells us, via voiceover, that she was “born and raised in the hills of Virginia, when coal was king.” The year is 1978. Ave is 40, proprietor of the town’s pharmacy, unmarried and, in her words, “the old maid” of Big Stone Gap. To her credit, Ave Maria’s marital status is of far less concern to her than to the townsfolk who regularly enter her orbit, including her work colleague Fleeta Mullins (Whoopi Goldberg); Iva Lou Wade (Jenna Elfman), the flirtatious local librarian; and Nan MacChesney (Judith Ivey), who would love to see Ave wedded to her hunky coal-mining son Jack (Patrick Wilson). It seems as though Jack might like that, too, but he’s already involved with the gregarious Sweet Sue (Jane Krakowski), whom Fleeta describes as “a saber-toothed divorcée in need of cash.” For some, Fleeta explains, “Money in the bank means love in the heart.”
If “Big Stone Gap” involved nothing more than listening to eccentric Southerners drop similar pearls of wisdom, it would be both intolerable and forgettable. Fortunately, Ave’s story is more complex: In addition to matters of romance, she’s grappling with the sudden death of her mother and unexpected revelations about her background. In Trigiani’s hands, she and the people who surround her are rendered with dignity and humanity..."
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