Bill Forsyth, the Scottish filmmaker of Local Hero and Comfort and Joy, has quitted his native land for someplace else with plenty of weather, the Pacific Northwest. And he has packed along most of his sense of humor and of his sense of magic. The story he tells, from a novel by Marilynne Robinson, is of two orphaned sisters who in early adolescence are turned over for upbringing to their eccentric aunt. The two girls, reacting to their new role model in separate ways, clearly embody and enact two alternative paths through life: the straight and the loopy. And "clearly" is meant here in the nicest possible way: with clarity, lucidly, vividly, simply, but not blatantly or simplemindedly. To have as catalyst in this affair a character who'd been on the loopy path all her adult life opens Forsyth to the prime pitfall in all treatments of eccentricity: that of romanticizing it. But he evades this with great help from Christine Lahti, who never plays her dottiness as a matter of pride, always as a matter of fact. With Sara Walker and Andrea Burchill. (1987) — Duncan Shepherd
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