Product Details

• Actors: Mary McDonnell, Alfre Woodard, Angela Bassett, Lenore Banks, Will Mahoney
• Directors: John Sayles
• Writers: John Sayles
• Producers: John Sloss, Maggie Renzi, Sarah Green
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Sony Pictures
• VHS Release Date: April 7, 1998
• Run Time: 135 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0800127188
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #233,550 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com essential video

An intelligent and potent drama about taking life's second chances when they come, Passion Fish finds director John Sayles (Matewan, Lone Star) once again providing a strong cast of actors with a smart, literate screenplay to produce an entertaining and thought-provoking film. Mary McDonnell (Dances with Wolves, Grand Canyon) plays a soap-opera actress paralyzed in a car accident, who returns to the small town on the Louisiana bayou where she grew up to hide. But the hiring of a physical therapist with a tortured past (Alfre Woodard), and the sometimes antagonistic bond formed between them, allows the woman to try and rehabilitate herself and seize the opportunities that life still has to offer. With some great traditional Cajun music and the picturesque bayou as a backdrop, Passion Fish is an engaging yarn not to be missed. --Robert Lane

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful Bayou., April 25, 2000

By 

John Cobb (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Passion Fish (DVD)

In this current era of moviemaking, it's rare than an idea as soft, as pure as Passion Fish, will be given an opportunity to be made. Thankfully John Sayles has the ability to circumvent the `by-committee' filmmaking which would have ultimately turned this wonderful little film into God know's what.

Mary McDonnell will never be better-she is brilliant, than in her portrayal of May-Alice Culhane (for which she was Oscar-nominated), the once-on-top Soap Opera star to whom tragedy has taken the use of her legs, and forced a re-evaluation of her life.

Alfre Woodard, as the hired home-care worker/nurse Chantelle provides the perfect complement as both these women find more of themselves through each other, then they might ever have found otherwise. Again, Ms. Woodard has rarely disappointed.

The early montage of health-care applicants is clever and funny. And John Sayles always is able to find brilliance in his supporting cast: notably Vondie Curtis-Hall, Leo Burmester, and David Strathairn, as well as a small role early in the career of Angela Bassett.

Sayles' script was also nominated for an Academy Award.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Passion Fish, June 17, 2006

By 

K Scheffler (Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Passion Fish (DVD)

I borrowed this movie along with four or five others from the local library and I kept putting it off and eventually considered simply returning it without even watching it, thinking that it looked kind of sappy and would be a bore to watch. I decided to give it a try the night--very late in the night, I should say--before it was due, and boy was I ever wrong. This is one of the most moving and evocative movies that I've watched in a while, and could not help but watch it through to the end despite the late hour. This is one of the few times when I can say that I feel that a movie was perfectly cast. The acting, the character development is superb, and a nice tight story and excellent script. I most enjoyed the scene on the Bayou to the song Le Danse de Mardi Gras, it was just so beautifully done and the song really evokes the "fecund"--as one minor whimsically puts it when trying to decribe Louisiana--of the region. This alone makes the movie worth watching.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great content, Superb acting - a true work of art, December 2, 2003

By 

Sokste "KtS" (Minneapolis, MN U.S.A.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Passion Fish (DVD)

I love this film. The acting is as good as it can be. The simultaneous journeys of the characters blend and combust on each other and enrich each other. There are many delicious moments that themselves are worth re-watching. Completely delicious - all this despite the content itself being relatively challenging.

I'm just really going to have to check out all Sayles movies I guess - I keep finding out a favorite is by him. And Alfre Woodard of course never disappoints.

Completely worth it!