In Country
Encyclopedia
In Country is a 1989 American drama film produced and directed by Norman Jewison
, starring Bruce Willis
and Emily Lloyd
. The screenplay by Frank Pierson and Cynthia Cidre was based on the novel by Bobbie Ann Mason
. The original music score was composed by James Horner
. Willis earned a best supporting actor Golden Globe
nomination for his role.
with her uncle Emmett Smith, a quiet laid-back Vietnam
veteran who smokes marijuana about 14 times a day, as in the novel. He suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder
. Samantha's father, Dwayne, was killed in Vietnam at 21 after marrying and impregnating Samantha's mother, Irene. Samantha finds some old photographs, medals, and letters of her father, and becomes obsessed with finding out more about him.
Irene, who has moved to Lexington, Kentucky
with her second husband, wants Samantha to move in with them and go to college. But Samantha would rather stay with Emmett and try to find out more about her father. Her mother is no help, as she tells Samantha, "Honey, I married him a month before he left for the war. He was 19. I hardly even remember him." Finally, Samantha, Emmett and her grandmother visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
in Washington, D.C.
Finding her father's name in the memorial releases cathartic emotions in Samantha and her family.
. In order to get into the mindset of a girl whose father has died, the young actress thought of the death of her paternal grandfather, Charles Lloyd Pack, a British actor to whom she was very close. Lloyd underwent training to speak with a Kentucky accent in the film.
The veterans in the dance sequence are all actual Vietnam veterans, and their real family members accompany them. Of the five major characters who are Vietnam veterans, only one, Earl, is played by an actual Vietnam veteran, Jim Beaver
. Ken Jenkins
, who plays Jim Holly (the organizer of the veteran's dance), is the father of Daniel Jenkins, who plays Samantha's father Dwayne in the Vietnam flashbacks. Their casting in the film was purely coincidental. The commencement speaker was played by Don Young, the minister of a large Baptist
church in Paducah, Kentucky
. In an interview with The Paducah Sun, he said the speech had been written for him but joked that it was so good, he might "borrow" parts of it in future sermons.
. The walk-in doctor's office seen in the film is actually a dry cleaners which was renamed "Clothes Doctor" following its appearance in the film. Several scenes were shot in Paducah, Kentucky
particularly the scenes inside their home. In a quick shot outside the small home, located in Mayfield, one can briefly observe a boxer and a black lab lying under a tree in the front yard. The boxer, Dempsey, belonged to the actual resident of the home, while the black lab was Dempsey's lifelong pal from down the street, Scotty.
, which Bruce Willis attended and dedicated to Canadian war veterans who fought in
Vietnam.
. Film critic Roger Ebert
gave the film three out of four stars and wrote, "The movie is like a time bomb. You sit there, interested, absorbed, sometimes amused, sometimes moved, but wondering in the back of your mind what all of this is going to add up to. Then you find out". In his review for the Globe and Mail, Rick Groen praised Emily Lloyd's performance: "Emily Lloyd, the callow Brit who burned up the screen in Wish You Were Here
, is letter perfect – her accent impeccable and her energy immense". USA Today
gave the film three out of four stars and praised Bruce Willis' "subsidiary performance as Lloyd's reclusive guardian-uncle is admirably short on showboating". In his review for The Guardian
, Derek Malcolm praised Lloyd for her "portrait is of a lively waif who does not intend to be easily defeated by the comedy of life without adding a few jokes of her own, and it is the most complete thing she has so far done on the screen, good as she was in Wish You Were Here". Time
magazine felt that the script "perhaps pursues too many banal and inconsequential matters as it portrays teen life in a small town", but that "the film starts to gather force and direction when a dance, organized to honor the local Viet vets, works out awkwardly". Furthermore, its critic felt that the film was "a lovely, necessary little stitch in our torn time".
In her review for The New York Times
, Caryn James criticized the "cheap and easy touches ... that reduce it to the shallowness of a television movie", and found James Horner
's score, "offensive and distracting". Newsweek
magazine's David Ansen
wrote, "While one can respect its lofty intentions, the movie doesn't seem to have any better sense than its high-school heroine of just what it's looking for. At once underdramatized and faintly stagy, it keeps promising revelations that never quite materialize". In her review for the Washington Post, Rita Kempley wrote, "What's meant to be a cohesive family portrait, a suffering American microcosm, is a shambles of threads dangling and characters adrift. Jewison leaves it to stymied viewers to figure out the gist of it".
Norman Jewison
Norman Frederick Jewison, CC, O.Ont is a Canadian film director, producer, actor and founder of the Canadian Film Centre. Highlights of his directing career include In the Heat of the Night , The Thomas Crown Affair , Fiddler on the Roof , Jesus Christ Superstar , Moonstruck , The Hurricane and The...
, starring Bruce Willis
Bruce Willis
Walter Bruce Willis , better known as Bruce Willis, is an American actor, producer, and musician. His career began in television in the 1980s and has continued both in television and film since, including comedic, dramatic, and action roles...
and Emily Lloyd
Emily Lloyd
-Early life:Emily Lloyd Pack was born in London, the daughter of Sheila , now known as , a theatrical agent who was a longtime secretary at Harold Pinter's stage agency, and Roger Lloyd-Pack, a stage actor, well-known as Trigger in the British hit sitcom Only Fools and Horses. Her grandfather,...
. The screenplay by Frank Pierson and Cynthia Cidre was based on the novel by Bobbie Ann Mason
Bobbie Ann Mason
Bobbie Ann Mason is an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and literary critic from Kentucky.With four siblings Mason grew up on her family's dairy farm outside of Mayfield, Kentucky. As a child she loved to read, so her parents, Wilburn and Christina Mason, always made sure she had...
. The original music score was composed by James Horner
James Horner
James Roy Horner is an American composer, orchestrator and conductor of orchestral and film music. He is noted for the integration of choral and electronic elements in many of his film scores, and for frequent use of Celtic musical elements...
. Willis earned a best supporting actor Golden Globe
Golden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign...
nomination for his role.
Plot
Recent high school graduate Samantha Hughes, 17, lives in fictional Hopewell, KentuckyKentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
with her uncle Emmett Smith, a quiet laid-back Vietnam
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
veteran who smokes marijuana about 14 times a day, as in the novel. He suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder
Post-traumatic stress disorder
Posttraumaticstress disorder is a severe anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to any event that results in psychological trauma. This event may involve the threat of death to oneself or to someone else, or to one's own or someone else's physical, sexual, or psychological integrity,...
. Samantha's father, Dwayne, was killed in Vietnam at 21 after marrying and impregnating Samantha's mother, Irene. Samantha finds some old photographs, medals, and letters of her father, and becomes obsessed with finding out more about him.
Irene, who has moved to Lexington, Kentucky
Lexington, Kentucky
Lexington is the second-largest city in Kentucky and the 63rd largest in the US. Known as the "Thoroughbred City" and the "Horse Capital of the World", it is located in the heart of Kentucky's Bluegrass region...
with her second husband, wants Samantha to move in with them and go to college. But Samantha would rather stay with Emmett and try to find out more about her father. Her mother is no help, as she tells Samantha, "Honey, I married him a month before he left for the war. He was 19. I hardly even remember him." Finally, Samantha, Emmett and her grandmother visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Vietnam Veterans Memorial
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a national memorial in Washington, D.C. It honors U.S. service members of the U.S. armed forces who fought in the Vietnam War, service members who died in service in Vietnam/South East Asia, and those service members who were unaccounted for during the War.Its...
in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
Finding her father's name in the memorial releases cathartic emotions in Samantha and her family.
Cast
- Bruce WillisBruce WillisWalter Bruce Willis , better known as Bruce Willis, is an American actor, producer, and musician. His career began in television in the 1980s and has continued both in television and film since, including comedic, dramatic, and action roles...
as Emmett Smith - Emily LloydEmily Lloyd-Early life:Emily Lloyd Pack was born in London, the daughter of Sheila , now known as , a theatrical agent who was a longtime secretary at Harold Pinter's stage agency, and Roger Lloyd-Pack, a stage actor, well-known as Trigger in the British hit sitcom Only Fools and Horses. Her grandfather,...
as Samantha Hughes - Joan AllenJoan AllenJoan Allen is an American actress. She worked in theatre, television and film during her early career, and achieved recognition for her Broadway debut in Burn This, winning a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play in 1989.She has received three Academy Award nominations;...
as Irene - Kevin Anderson as Lonnie
- John TerryJohn Terry (actor)John Terry is an American film, television, and stage actor.-Early life:Terry was born in Florida, where he attended Vero Beach High School. He was also educated at the prestigious Loomis Chaffee prep school in Windsor, Connecticut, and began a career building original custom log homes in North...
as Tom - Peggy ReaPeggy ReaPeggy Jane Rea was an American character actress known for her many roles in television, often playing matronly characters...
as Mamaw - Judith IveyJudith IveyJudith Lee Ivey is an American actress and director.-Personal life:Ivey was born in El Paso, Texas, the daughter of Dorothy Lee , a teacher, and Nathan Aldean Ivey, a college instructor and dean. She spent 1965-1968 in Dowagiac, Michigan, where she attended Union High School through tenth grade...
as Anita - Daniel Jenkins as Dwayne
- Stephen TobolowskyStephen TobolowskyStephen Harold Tobolowsky is an American actor. He is well known for his role as Ned Ryerson in Groundhog Day, as well as portraying Commissioner Hugo Jarry in Deadwood for nine episodes and Bob Bishop in Heroes for eleven episodes over the second and third seasons...
as Pete - Jim BeaverJim BeaverJames Norman "Jim" Beaver, Jr. is an American stage, film, and television actor, playwright, screenwriter, and film historian...
as Earl Smith - Richard Hamilton as Grandpaw
- Heidi SwedbergHeidi SwedbergHeidi Swedberg is an American actress known for her role as Susan Ross, the fiancée of George Costanza on the television sitcom Seinfeld....
as Dawn - Ken JenkinsKen JenkinsKen Jenkins is an American actor, best known for his role as Dr. Bob Kelso, the Chief of Medicine on the American comedy Scrubs....
as Jim Holly - Jonathan Hogan as Larry
- Patricia RichardsonPatricia RichardsonPatricia Castle Richardson is an American television and film actress best known for her portrayal of Jill Taylor on the sitcom Home Improvement.-Early life and education:...
as Cindy
Casting
To prepare for her role, Emily Lloyd stayed with a lawyer and his family in Paducah, KentuckyPaducah, Kentucky
Paducah is the largest city in Kentucky's Jackson Purchase Region and the county seat of McCracken County, Kentucky, United States. It is located at the confluence of the Tennessee River and the Ohio River, halfway between the metropolitan areas of St. Louis, Missouri, to the west and Nashville,...
. In order to get into the mindset of a girl whose father has died, the young actress thought of the death of her paternal grandfather, Charles Lloyd Pack, a British actor to whom she was very close. Lloyd underwent training to speak with a Kentucky accent in the film.
The veterans in the dance sequence are all actual Vietnam veterans, and their real family members accompany them. Of the five major characters who are Vietnam veterans, only one, Earl, is played by an actual Vietnam veteran, Jim Beaver
Jim Beaver
James Norman "Jim" Beaver, Jr. is an American stage, film, and television actor, playwright, screenwriter, and film historian...
. Ken Jenkins
Ken Jenkins
Ken Jenkins is an American actor, best known for his role as Dr. Bob Kelso, the Chief of Medicine on the American comedy Scrubs....
, who plays Jim Holly (the organizer of the veteran's dance), is the father of Daniel Jenkins, who plays Samantha's father Dwayne in the Vietnam flashbacks. Their casting in the film was purely coincidental. The commencement speaker was played by Don Young, the minister of a large Baptist
Baptist
Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...
church in Paducah, Kentucky
Paducah, Kentucky
Paducah is the largest city in Kentucky's Jackson Purchase Region and the county seat of McCracken County, Kentucky, United States. It is located at the confluence of the Tennessee River and the Ohio River, halfway between the metropolitan areas of St. Louis, Missouri, to the west and Nashville,...
. In an interview with The Paducah Sun, he said the speech had been written for him but joked that it was so good, he might "borrow" parts of it in future sermons.
Filming
Many scenes were shot in Mayfield, KentuckyMayfield, Kentucky
As of the census of 2000, there were 10,349 people, 4,358 households, and 2,667 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,549.8 people per square mile . There were 4,907 housing units at an average density of 734.8 per square mile...
. The walk-in doctor's office seen in the film is actually a dry cleaners which was renamed "Clothes Doctor" following its appearance in the film. Several scenes were shot in Paducah, Kentucky
Paducah, Kentucky
Paducah is the largest city in Kentucky's Jackson Purchase Region and the county seat of McCracken County, Kentucky, United States. It is located at the confluence of the Tennessee River and the Ohio River, halfway between the metropolitan areas of St. Louis, Missouri, to the west and Nashville,...
particularly the scenes inside their home. In a quick shot outside the small home, located in Mayfield, one can briefly observe a boxer and a black lab lying under a tree in the front yard. The boxer, Dempsey, belonged to the actual resident of the home, while the black lab was Dempsey's lifelong pal from down the street, Scotty.
Release
In Country had its world premiere on September 7, 1989 at the Toronto International Film FestivalToronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival is a publicly-attended film festival held each September in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 2010, 339 films from 59 countries were screened at 32 screens in downtown Toronto venues...
, which Bruce Willis attended and dedicated to Canadian war veterans who fought in
Vietnam.
Box office performance
The film was given a limited release on September 15, 1989 in four theaters grossing $36,505 on its opening weekend. It was given a wide release on September 29, 1989 in 606 theaters grossing $1.3 million on its opening weekend. It went on to make $3.5 million in North America.Critical reception
In Country was generally well-received by critics. It has an 82% rating on Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
. Film critic Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
gave the film three out of four stars and wrote, "The movie is like a time bomb. You sit there, interested, absorbed, sometimes amused, sometimes moved, but wondering in the back of your mind what all of this is going to add up to. Then you find out". In his review for the Globe and Mail, Rick Groen praised Emily Lloyd's performance: "Emily Lloyd, the callow Brit who burned up the screen in Wish You Were Here
Wish You Were Here (1987 film)
Wish You Were Here is a 1987 British drama/comedy film starring Emily Lloyd and Tom Bell. The film was written and directed by David Leland. The original music score was composed by Stanley Myers.-Plot:...
, is letter perfect – her accent impeccable and her energy immense". USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
gave the film three out of four stars and praised Bruce Willis' "subsidiary performance as Lloyd's reclusive guardian-uncle is admirably short on showboating". In his review for The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, Derek Malcolm praised Lloyd for her "portrait is of a lively waif who does not intend to be easily defeated by the comedy of life without adding a few jokes of her own, and it is the most complete thing she has so far done on the screen, good as she was in Wish You Were Here". Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine felt that the script "perhaps pursues too many banal and inconsequential matters as it portrays teen life in a small town", but that "the film starts to gather force and direction when a dance, organized to honor the local Viet vets, works out awkwardly". Furthermore, its critic felt that the film was "a lovely, necessary little stitch in our torn time".
In her review for The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, Caryn James criticized the "cheap and easy touches ... that reduce it to the shallowness of a television movie", and found James Horner
James Horner
James Roy Horner is an American composer, orchestrator and conductor of orchestral and film music. He is noted for the integration of choral and electronic elements in many of his film scores, and for frequent use of Celtic musical elements...
's score, "offensive and distracting". Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
magazine's David Ansen
David Ansen
David Ansen is a reviewer and senior editor for Newsweek, where he has been reviewing movies since 1977. He came to Newsweek after several years as the chief film critic at Boston's The Real Paper...
wrote, "While one can respect its lofty intentions, the movie doesn't seem to have any better sense than its high-school heroine of just what it's looking for. At once underdramatized and faintly stagy, it keeps promising revelations that never quite materialize". In her review for the Washington Post, Rita Kempley wrote, "What's meant to be a cohesive family portrait, a suffering American microcosm, is a shambles of threads dangling and characters adrift. Jewison leaves it to stymied viewers to figure out the gist of it".