What would you do if someone you loved sat down with you one night and calmly told you that they were going to end their life? This is Thelma Cates' (Anne Bancroft) dilemma. Her daughter, Jessie (Sissy Spacek), has had it. A middle-aged epileptic unable to hold a job or drive with a failed marriage and a drug-addicted runaway son on the wrong side of the law, Jessie can find no reason to go on living. The rest of the film follows Jessie as she tries to get her mother to understand why she wants to kill herself before she actually commits the act, and Thelmas bewildered reaction. She begs, pleads, coaxes her daughter but Jessie is hell-bent on suicide and even the powerful maternal love for a child and deep need to protect them from harm, is useless in the face of Jessies utter determination to die. Directed by Tom Moore and based on Marsha Norman's Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name, this film asks the audience to look at both sides of the coin with regards to a person taking their own life. The result is a film that is complex, interesting, sometimes funny, and heart-wrenchingly sad. It is, no doubt, a tear-jerker, but its well worth seeing.
Jesse Gumbarge is editor and chief blogger at JarvisCity.com - He loves old-school horror films and starting pointless debates. You can reach out at: JesseGumbarge@JarvisCity.com
