The Trip to Bountiful: A Review (Review #1962)

THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL

Memory is a most curious thing. It is something that we alone possess, attempt to pass on, and sometimes live in or for. The Trip to Bountiful is both a specific and universal story, with a moving performance from Geraldine Page as a flawed but feisty woman, determined to go back one final time to what was home.

Carrie Watts (Page) is a widow living with her son Luddie (John Heard) and his wife Jessie Mae (Carlyn Glynn). To say that Mother Watts and Jessie Mae do not get along is putting it mildly. The bossy, often mean Jessie Mae is a tyrant with Mama Watts, scolding her for singing hymns and accusing her of deliberately hiding her pension check that Jessie Mae wants. Luddie, for his part, wants there to be peace between the two women in his life, but they cannot find much common ground.

Mrs. Watts is determined to go back to her hometown of Bountiful, Texas, for one last visit and reminisce. Luddie and especially Jessie Mae are dead set against it and will not let her go. It takes Jessie Mae finally leaving to meet up with her frenemy for Mrs. Watts to carry out her plan: rush out of their shared apartment, board a train to Bountiful and get back home. Unfortunately, Mrs. Watts is not aware that time has evaporated Bountiful, done in by the Depression and people moving from there to nearby Houston, where she too lives. Finding there are no trains to Bountiful, she tries a bus. There are no buses to Bountiful, but there are to nearby Harrison. That's close enough for Mrs. Watts, who manages to avoid Luddie and Jessie Mae.

On route, she makes friend with Thelma (Rebecca De Mornay), who has recently married a soldier shipped off and who is traveling to Corpus Christi to stay with her parents until her new husband returns. In Harrison, Mrs. Watts realizes that she left her purse on the bus that just left. Fortunately, the bus is not too far and can have the purse sent back. Unfortunately, that gives the police enough time to hold Mrs. Watts in town until Luddie comes for her. The shock of coming so close only to be held back is too much, and she has a medical emergency. The sheriff, taking pity on her, agrees to escort her to what remains of Bountiful, though he reminds Mrs. Watts that Luddie will bring her back. Once in Bountiful, Mrs. Watts reflects on what has come before and what there is left to come. Will Mama Watts, Luddie and Jessie Mae find a new understanding amongst each other?

It is a curious thing that while The Trip to Bountiful is often filmed in open spaces, it still strongly reflects its stage roots. So many scenes in The Trip to Bountiful play as if they were taking place on a stage. I do not know if director Peter Masterson or screenwriter Horton Foote (adapting his own stage play) deliberately intended to make The Trip to Bountiful look like a stage play filmed outdoors. That was what I found to be the end result.

This observation is not a slam on the film. Far from it: The Trip to Bountiful allows for the dialogue and the acting to have more of a focus due to that staging. It is, however, easy to see how the story originated on the stage given that it plays that way. 

The Trip to Bountiful was Geraldine Page's eighth Oscar nomination. Had she lost, Page would have had the record for the greatest number of unsuccessful Oscar bids, or at least gotten there before the current record holders of Peter O'Toole and Glenn Close who are both 0-8. Given that Page was not a major film star like O'Toole and Close, this would have made for a curious bit of history. However, Page more than was worthy of the win. This is not the time nor place to judge whether Page "deserved" to win or match her against her competitors.

It is, instead, a time to look at Page's performance. Here, one is deeply moved by Mrs. Watts, who is stubborn but also filled with deep emotion on her past, present and future. She has wonderful moments of monologues, such as when she talks to Thelma about Ray John Murray, whom she considers the lost love of her life. Telling Thelma that she did not love her husband but admired him (and let him know it), we see in Page's performance all the waves of regret that Carrie Watts has. Mrs. Watts is a woman of deep faith, who finds both joy and comfort in her relationship with Christ. She also has great pain, talking about the loss of two of her children in moments that move the audience. In her desire to visit her old ground, her fear and anger at seemingly failing, the struggle with her daughter-in-law, Page captures this singular woman's needs, anxieties and hopes.

The Trip to Bountiful is an exceptionally well-acted film all around. Rebecca De Mornay and Carlin Glynn would have more than rightly earned Best Supporting Actress nominations for their performances as Thelma and Jessie Mae respectively. It is a bit of a surprise that both were overlooked that year. De Mornay reveals a side to her skills that I think has not been as tapped as it should have. Her Thelma is gentle, kind and almost innocent, a young bride starting out her life who helps Mrs. Watts avoid Luddie and Jessie Mae. In their scenes together, you see a bond growing that the pressures of time forced an end. Again, you can see how the character of Thelma might have just been there for Act II, but that does not remove the positives of De Mornay in the film.

For her part, we get to openly hate Glynn's Jessie Mae. She is not a monster, for at one point she does show great concern when Mother Watts has something of a fainting spell, even offering to stay with her while Mother Watts recovers. However, for most of The Trip to Bountiful, we see Jessie Mae as snobbish, contemptuous of her elderly mother-in-law and rather curt with everyone. Still, by the end, we do see that perhaps there can be a rapprochement in their relationship.

In his role, Heard too showed another side as the henpecked Luddie. He loves his mother, but he loves his wife too. Near the end, Luddie has a long monologue about how he does not feel the connection to Bountiful that Carrie has owing to the circumstances that he lived through. Heard handles the gentle, sometimes weak, but eventually firm Luddie with great skill. This is a man filled with regrets, even anger, about his situation with Carrie and Jessie Mae, but now wants to see if he can be that peacemaker he wants to be.

The Trip to Bountiful is a curious film in how it is never far from its stage roots. However, with strong performances from the cast and a moving story about the importance of your past and future, I think many will be moved at the end. "I'll go on," Mrs. Watts at one point says. She may mean go on to Bountiful, but I think there's more meaning than that. We all have our own Bountiful, and The Trip to Bountiful is a beautiful reminder of remembering our roots without becoming entangled in them.

DECISION: B+