The Yearling

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david f This is one of those frontier stories where a child has to grow up by committing a violent though necessary act. The portrait of rural Florida is classic Americana and the story involves a lot of nature and slowly builds up to the tense climax. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review steve d I will never understand the appeal of this film. Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review Audience Member I was aware of the fact that the book that served as the basis for this film was a Pulitzer Prize winner and that the film Cross Creek (1983) was based on the writer, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, and her life experiences. This meant that I went into this film not expecting a light comedy targeted at family audiences but something of weight and import that would say something about class or difficult family dynamics. While the film touched on uncommonly difficult topics for the time including miscarriages it did turn out to be your run of the mill family film that was unnecessarily long and failed to emotionally manipulate me. In 1878 lonely child Jody Baxter, Claude Jarman Jr., is very close to his kind, loving father Ezra "Penny", Gregory Peck, but struggles in his relationship with his mother Ora, Jane Wyman, who is cold, distant and demanding. The reason for her treatment of him is the trauma that she faces as a result of multiple miscarriages as she believes that if she comes to love her child he will be taken away from her as her other children were. Baxter's life is changed when he finds a young fawn after killing it's mother to treat his father's snake bite wound. He adopts the fawn and names it Flag but he is forced to kill the animal when it starts eating his family's crops and doesn't stop despite Baxter's efforts to keep him away from the crops. He is saddened by the death of his best friend and decides to escape from home but is hurt while in the wilderness. Penny and Ora feverishly search for their son and both are eventually reunited with him as Ora comes to understand that she can openly show love for her son without fear of losing him. Much like King Solomon's Mines (1950) an unusually complex performance from the female lead elevated a bland, lifeless story and what could have been just another supportive, endlessly devoted mother. Wyman is a talented actress as shown by the range she displays between films like The Blue Veil (1951) and All That Heaven Allows (1955) but I assumed that with a screenplay this poor she would be lost under the weight of the schmaltz. Fortunately she is such a radiant, exuberant presence that she dares to make her Ora a downright unlikable character while also subtly hinting at her character's hidden pain. She gets the Southern accent right and her tart comments and palpable frustration with her son make for a fascinating subversion of the sort of mother figures popular in this sort of film. She earned her Best Actress nomination in a very strong lineup and stands out from the rest of this irritatingly bland film to give a uniquely fascinating performance. The rest of the film is the same old, same old as a sweet moppet of a child grows up through raising a similarly immature animal and becomes a man when he learns to let his companion go. This story is dealt with in more depth in the darker Kes (1969) which tackles the pain of an angry, disadvantaged youth surrounded by people who simply don't care. In this film Penny, played with stolid charm by a typecast Peck, is not a character but a perfect father with no imperfections that would humanize him or make his relationship with his son engaging. We know that Jody is lonely as an only child in a remote location but he never seems particularly upset about his circumstances and wears a silly little grin throughout the film that suggests no troubles whatsoever. We don't really know whether this boy's circumstances bother him and so the introduction of this fawn seems like just another positive addition to his charmed life. We are not terribly heartbroken when he loses this fawn and I had full confidence that he would return to his loving parents and be perfectly happy. There is better children's entertainment that was produced in this period as Cover Girl (1944) and Strike Up the Band (1940) offer far more entertainment than this film which is not helped by an unfortunately weak performance from it's young lead who is trying too hard to convey emotion. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 02/01/23 Full Review Audience Member SPOILERS: Beautiful, well acted and highly entertaining, this movie is wonderful. I've viewed it many times and have spread its joys to many friends and relatives. I have a friend from work, and we often see each other, shouting out Jody's histronic "Ah HATES yah, I HATES yah and Ah Hopes Ya DIE!" We don't do it to make fun of the movie, we do it because it we instantly get entangled in the deep emotion of that dreadful moment. It makes us laugh, but but it also throws us into the middle of the poor child's histeria and flings us back into our own childhood traumas (which thank heavens were light weight compared to those of poor Jody. Now, I'm not saying the movie doesn't have hilarious moments. My personal favorite is Jody wondering aloud how his smelly pet deer could possible offend his mother's nose. Cracks me up every single time! I think the best actor in this movie is the mother played by Jane Wyman. When she fusses my heart crumbles into dust for her and the losses she suffered prior to having her boy Jody. What heartache it must have been to have so many little graves, each containing a piece of her heart, so close to her home. Oh yeah, and Gregory Peck was good in this movie too. The boy who played Jody is a hoot, and a heartbreaker. That is saying a lot for a time period when children in general couldn't act their way out of a paper bag. I would kill to know what the director must have said to get that kind of performance out of that little neophyte actor. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/03/23 Full Review Audience Member The best movie ever made! Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/26/23 Full Review Audience Member 'Tis fine, powerful fine! Heavier than I expected, but Gregory Peck gives one of his finest performances in this stellar coming-of-age drama. (First and only viewing - 2/3/2019) Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/19/23 Full Review Read all reviews

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