RUN THE WILD FIELDS

US, 2000, 100 minutes, Colour.
Joanne Whalley, Sean Patrick Flannery, Cotter Smith, Alexa Vega.
Directed by Paul A. Kaufmann.

Run the Wild Fields is based on a play by Rodney Patrick Vaccaro who has opened it out for the screen – it does not seem like a filmed play.

The setting is North Carolina in 1945. Joanne Whalley convincingly plays a woman whose husband has been missing in action in the Pacific for three years. Alexa Vega (just about to appear in the first of the Spy Kids films) is precociously strong as her daughter. They run a farm, live in a small southern town, get on well together – in an atmosphere of patriotism.

Sean Patrick Flannery plays a drifter who is injured by some dogs, cared for by mother and daughter, stays to work on the farm. This is a very reticent film and while there are suggestions of deep emotions, behaviour is very proper and decent.

The stranger is an enigma and it is only at the end of the film that one learns what his true story is.

This is a very pleasing film about the war years, about American spirit and behaviour, about the deep feelings of ordinary American people.

The producers won a daytime Emmy for the best children’s special program.

1.World War Two, a war story? From fifty years later? The role of memory, nostalgia? The perspective from the voice-over of Pug?

2.A telemovie, viewer-friendly, characters, plot, dialogue, issues?

3.The setting and its detail, the visualising of the farm, the home, the fields and the countryside, the roads? Shops, dance hall, church? Authentic feel? The musical score?

4.The war and its effect, the men serving overseas, the Pacific, no communication? The wives and families at home, photos, hoping and losing hope? The elderly couple, their son winning a Bronze Star, the letter coming to tell of his death? Grief? The end and the experience of relief?

5.Issues of patriotism, war service, joining the army and the forces, judgments on those who didn’t, issues of cowardice?

6.Ruby, her age, her life with her husband, work on the farm, the chores? Her love for her daughter, her daughter’s age? Finding Tom, helping him, the dogs? The doctor and her inviting Tom to stay? Silas turning up, his implicit criticism, his own hopes? His angers? Ruby giving the gift of the clothes, Tom arrested by the police? Her taking him back to work, to stay in the barn, helping with the work? The discussions, his being an enigma? The absence of husband and father? Tom becoming a father figure, helping Pug with the work, dancing? The bond with Ruby, her happiness? The scenes of work and sowing the fields? At the fair, the attack on Tom, his strength of response? Ruby and her reaction? The fire in the barn, Tom rescuing Pug? Ruby kissing him? Tom knowing the truth about Frank’s return, barring the door? Leaving quietly?

7.Pug and her voice-over, her age, love for her father, the three years that he was away? Her work in the fields, her mother and the dress? Going to church? Out in the fields, learning to dance, the fights at school, her defence of Tom, dancing with the young boy and Tom urging him to invite Pug to dance? Finding the ring, concocting the story about Tom? The letter, opening it, knowing that her father was coming back, not telling her mother? The complexity of her feelings, wanting Tom to be her father? Tom rescuing her from the fire? Leaving?

8.Tom, enigmatic, a good man, working hard, gentle, not a pacifist, the story of his brother in the Spanish civil war, the real story, his own involvement, his blaming himself for his brother’s death, the chance bullet and his brother dying, his taking his ring as a memory of him? The letter of discharge? People’s change of attitude when they heard the truth?

9.Silas, his life, looking after his mother, the boys, a hard life, his approaches to Ruby, helping her out, the clash? The boy and his taunting Tom? His being rescued from the fire by Tom?

10.Ordinary people, their capacity for gossip and judgment?

11.The letter, its arrival, Pug not telling her mother? Tom leaving, encountering Frank on the road, exchanging the cigarettes?

12.The themes of war absences, hardships? All presented from a different age – and an age of decency?