Review of Christy: Return to Cutter Gap (2000) by Monsieur R — 26 Nov 2010

Almost entirely a flashback for a retired teacher, Christy-Return to Cutter Gap, is a good story and movie. Well photographed and a little rough in the acting, the teacher is as restrained and diplomatic a person as one could be in a backward, hillbilly environment where change is bad to the locals. To compound the problems, a gang keeps harrassing the locals and eventually the teacher herself.

The most learned person is an Irish doctor who is the middleman of the bunch. The preacher is not too bad with english either. But the hill folk are toothless hoosiers who condemn the teacher to the teacher's dismay.

About every stereotype in the book is represented in this film including a near lynching of the so called "poachers". A lady aviator and outsider fires a gun and runs off the vigilante hillbillys.

This film is fairly realistic but shortcuts like in the aforementioned paragraph degrade the movie.

The ending is very touching as most everyone takes a ride in the aviator's plane (which crash landed some months ago).

Worth watching, but comes off as a high school play. The lead actress is the teacher, who is a cute as can be and how she never got married during the film is beyond me, but a country doctor and a reverend were not pleasing enough to her. So we are left to come back out of the flashback to the older women who WAS the teacher.

Glad to watch this one and no, it was not a waste of my time, which makes me rate movies as I do. A 60 or 70% type film.

Actors: Lauren Lee Smith, Stewart Finlay-McLennan, James Waterston, Bruce McKinnon, Andy Stahl.

Directors: Chuck Bowman.

Writers: Catherine Marshall, Tom Blomquist.

Producers: Chuck Bowman, Deboragh Gabler, John Schneider, John Steven Agoglia, Nancy LeSourd.

Format: Color, DVD, Letterboxed, NTSC.

Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo).

Subtitles: English, Spanish, French.

Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only).