A Painted House (2003)

Awesome Movie

The movie's only flaw is also a virtue: It's jammed with characters, stories, warmth and laughs.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

This multi-generational movie shows us a way of life where despite the poverty level of the family love is the abiding premise that holds the family together. In addition family members we are exposed to share cropper families and a family in even more desperate straight, but despite their limited resources of the main characters we see them reach out to neighbors who are even less fortunate. The acting is somewhat ensemble with Scott Glenn as the grandfather. All are superb in their roles. The overall feel of the time an place true to the story. Tidbits of life a throw in such as Tally, as played by Aurdry Marie Anderson admitting to Luke, played by a young Logan Lerman that she didn't mind him watching her bath in the river as that was what boys did. The move was a surprise considering I never thought of John Grisham's stories to be a writer of this ilk of story. It was a very pleasant change.

Maybe sometimes, we forget, with our plush life and current definition of "poverty", what things were like for rural "working poor" even as recently as the 50's. Survival, even for a man who owned the land, took a different strength of character. Is it good, or is it regretful those times have passed? More money yes, but were better times up North in the auto plants? I suppose, but this is nostalgia, and not bad either.It was a good family movie, narrated like the Waltons, I kept waiting for "goodnight Luke-boy". Yah, Little House on the Prairie too, a bit more reality, but did other commenters really expect this to be as complete as the book, any book? Personally, I'm tired of hearing book-readers whine about "what they left out". Don't watch movies if you read the book. This is certainly wandering reminiscences, but that's another type of literature too, isn't it? Why does every story have to be going somewhere special? To me it's a pretty good coming of age movie and worth the hour and a half at least, and always a pleasure watching Scott Glenn, when he gets good parts.

I really have to wonder if the man who wrote this had ever been to the South-- not Grisham, but the script writer who adapted it for the screen. Just because we have an accent doesn't mean we're ignorant. We don't say "boy" at the end of every sentence and never in my life have I heard anyone say "Where thePete's sake did you find her?" "Pete's sake" is reserved for exclamatory remarks such as "Well, for Pete's sake." "Where the sam hill" would have worked better or "where on earth."My guess is also, judging by the fake accents (almost on par with the hideous attempt Nicole Kidman makes in Cold Mountain, but not quite that bad) thatsome of the actors have never visited the South either, which would be why they didn't catch the constrained dialogue.This movie is basically a non-Southerner's attempt to make a Southern movie.As far as that goes, spend your two hours watching O Brother Where Art Thou or Steel Magnolias instead--excellent Southern films done by strangers. But don't watch this movie looking for the South, because other than the grandmapassing out ice tea served on a tray, you won't see it.

This movie had potential describing a southern family with a young boy at the center of it. I was disappointed in how the movie ended, because it did not leave the viewers with a sense of completion which I would expect out of a Hallmark movie.