By Marc S. Sanders
A film like Mark Rydell’s The River only thrives on witnessing the misery of people living with the misery of others. That’s not to say this is not how ordinary people are often forced to live. There’s too much suffering in the world. I can never deny that. A homeless shelter or a prison are settings of great misfortune, hardship and sadness. Yet for a movie, sometimes you must ask what the point is, especially when it is apparent that the heroes are destined to lose against the forces of nature while the villain is entirely correct in his own cause. Sometimes in a no-win situation it is honorable to just give up. I wish Tom Garvey, the corn farmer, would have just quit being a farmer and sought a better life for his wife Mae and their two young children.
Tom and Mae are played by Mel Gibson and Sissy Spacek. He is the current generation who owns the Tennessee corn crop farm that his family lineage has passed down. The first twenty minutes of The River depict the harshness of terrible rainstorms that flood the nearby river and wash away the family’s prized crops and land. Tom, Mae and the children do everything in their power to recede the water as the rain continues to come down in buckets. Mae fills up sacks of mud and water with their daughter Beth. Their son Lewis works with Tom on the beat-up tractor against a never-ending battle of plowing the flood waters away from the land. There’s no way to overcome this terrible plague of weather that comes at least twice every year. As I watch the sopping wet struggle that opens the picture in the middle of a stormy night, shot very well by Rydell and his crew, I already ask myself what’s the point? Get out of this situation Tom!!!!! Take up babysitting, tutor, become a fireman, go back to school. Relocate for heaven’s sakes!!!!
What recuses the Garvey family and the farm, one more time, is when the rain finally stops.
Scott Glenn is Joe Wade. He is a wealthy industrialist, who also grew up in these parts under a family legacy. Joe is on the good side of the state politicians and is aggressive in buying out the farmers’ land so that he can flood the valley, build a dam and use the overabundance of water to power the utilities of the area in a more efficient and much less costly way for everyone. And he’s the villain of the story????????
Joe makes sense. Tom’s passion for holding on to what his family has owned does not. I get the idea of grasping on to family heirlooms like my grandfather’s watch that he maybe kept hidden in an uncomfortable orifice while being held captive by the Nazis, or the prized jewel that survived a shipwreck generations ago. I also understand the desire to carry the torch of the harsh labor a father and a father before endured and died for while allowing a farm to thrive. Yet, there are children to feed and debts to pay. The ruin that comes from the acts of God do not empathize. Therefore, I say again, sometimes the bravest and most sensible thing a person can do is actually quit.
Tom, along with most of the neighboring farmers, are adamant about not selling their land to Joe. When auctions occur to sell off the equipment and leftover supplies of the few that do surrender, it is practically considered a gross violation of a sacred code in these parts. I look at the stubborn folks who frown upon their peers as terribly disrespectful. The script is expecting me to empathize with Tom and those who stand with him though.
Midway through, The River takes a detour as Tom leaves to do hard labor elsewhere to earn much needed cash. This is where misery does not love company. He is one of many men selected to do factory work as an inexpensive replacement for the union workers on strike. Tom, along with the other recruits, are threatened, called scabs, and in a glaring scene spit directly in the face. A fellow worker is beat up in the middle of the night. All of this is powerful footage and yet who am I supposed to empathize with? These workers on strike are demanding better benefits and rights. A guy like Tom, who values the survival of the Garvey farm, interferes in someone else’s just cause for his own welfare.
I think about films like Schindler’s List and even The Lord Of The Rings fantasies and I witness the hardships and suffering of a collective people. Those stories never expect me to value the misery of a select few over others. I take stock in a whole populace. In Mark Rydell’s film, however, I feel like I’m only asked to cry for Tom Garvey’s relief, the stubborn father who is defiant for an unlikely future of promise for the area he occupies while also ignoring the welfare of his family against the forces of nature. Joe is offering Tom and Mae hundreds of thousands of dollars for their land so that he can enhance the state. Joe’s bounty will rescue the family from insurmountable debt and the unforgiving floods that repeatedly destroy their crops. Still, I’m supposed to believe that Joe is the asshole.
Sissy Spacek was nominated for Best Actress for her performance. She competed against Sally Field (who won) and Jessica Lange. Both were ironically featured in their own “farm life films” in 1984. Spacek remains one of Hollywood’s finest actors. However, I did not think there was much for her to do here. A drawn-out sequence has Mae caught under a tractor with a nasty wound while the blistering heat bears down with no one around to help. It has its moment of suspense because this film could go in many different directions of tragedy, but a development like this is more circumstantial than performance based. If Katherine Hepburn or Laurence Olivier were under that tractor, the scene would not play out much differently. It’s just a standard farmer accident destined to be included in a standard farmer picture.
The possibility of a love triangle is also implied during the film. As soon as I saw the opening credits (Sissy Spacek, Mel Gibson, Scott Glenn), I hoped against all hope that the story would not go there, and yet…
Having hardly even used a rake or a shovel, I know that farming is a grueling life and still so necessary for our world consumption to survive. The River attempts to demonstrate this message. I empathize with people like Tom. I really do. However, I empathize with the sacrifice they may need to take, not with their with their foolhardy stubbornness or their intrusion upon others’ challenges for gain. If a doctor told me that no matter what efforts he performs he will not be able to save my arm or my leg, I’m going to have to believe him and accept that the limb must be amputated. If an overflowing river and an unbearably long rainstorm affects my home, my farm, my family and my livelihood at least twice a year, eventually I’m going to come to my senses and tell myself that the bad guy is probably right.
Contrary to the well-known slogan, sometimes money is everything.
2 UNPAID MOVIE CRITICS!!!! 