17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An intense movie, October 21, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Second Best [VHS] (VHS Tape)
William Hurt plays a grown man who still feels his parents, particularly his father didn't love him as they should have. He stays single and shy. Then he reaches out to a troubled boy, played by Chris Cleary Miles, and proceeds to adopt him. The adoption process is a bit ackward for him. The boy has serious mental problems and proves to be a challenge. This is a drama with funny and touching moments. It's too bad this movie wasn't a bigger hit.
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19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding and Emotionally Charged Drama., December 6, 2004
This review is from: Second Best [VHS] (VHS Tape)
As Graham Holt, Hurt gives one of his finest performances as a 40 something Welshman who's spent his entire life living with his parents in a tiny village. With his mother's recent passing and a mute, bedridden father, the lonely Graham wonders where his life has gone. An awkward, shy man Graham believes he has something to offer and having never really felt part of his parent's lives sets out to adopt a son and begin his own family.
Soon paired up with James, an emotionally disturbed 10 year old, Graham finds there are limits to be tested, and while we may place barriers around our lives if we are honest there can be no true borders around the heart.
This is a remarkable film and leaves me wondering why its director, Chris Menges (cinematographer for some of the most beautiful movies in the last quarter century) isn't directing more often. The performance he coaxes from young Chris Cleary Miles is never short of astonishing. James is a difficult role with wildly violent and sudden swings of mood and being and it could not have been easy for child; the character runs the gamut from innocent child to clever con and escape artist, survivalist, to obstinate manipulator. What is so painfully evident is that all the boy truly wants is a family but frightened - almost to death - of what that means.
Mr. Hurt and young Mr. Miles find their way through these challenging roles and, as captured, offer cinematic storytelling of the highest order - a world where gestures speak louder and truer than words.
That this movie hasn't yet made it onto DVD is incredible and an outrage. See if, by any means necessary.
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20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A sleeper, February 5, 2002
This review is from: Second Best [VHS] (VHS Tape)
I like William Hurt. I will watch anything he does. This video was a $3.00 purchase only because of Hurt's name. He is outstanding as an actor in this difficult part. He plays the reclusive and quiet man with no social skills perfectly. My heart went out to him...and the troubled boy he is trying to adopt. The filming was excellent. The flashbacks and symbolism. This film didn't make the best seller list but it one that should have gotten a wider audience if just for the acting let alone the story.
If you have children, adopted or not, this movie makes you think and see life as a child retains memories.
Rent or buy this movie. It will make your heart glad.
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