Actress Lee Grant's adaptation of a Tillie Olsen novella, chronicling an old immigrant couple's cross-country odyssey during the wife's terminal illness, is her feature-film directing debut, and she works hard to strengthen the myth of the woman's eye and woman's touch: everywhere you look, you find a lovely blanket or rug or shawl or loaf of bread or something. The interest in people's tastes extends from the trivial ("Irish Breakfast tea or Lichee Black tea?") to the weighty: the old man stands in front of an abstract painting done by his daughter's boyfriend, really looks hard at it, and the daughter really tries hard to explain it ("It deals with space"). And there is some good attention paid to the sorts of people found in various sorts of environment. But the curiosity in such things is too quickly satisfied, barely scratches the surface. And some hokey "psychological" flashbacks, decked out with Ukrainian folk costumes, poke grievous holes in the fabric of the film. Melvyn Douglas, Lila Kedrova. (1980) — Duncan Shepherd
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