Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

John Robert "Jack" Sommersby, I am not amused. You call yourself believable and worthy of the name just because you survived the Civil War and starvation in prison for six years? Funny how you've changed your spots and become a compassionate, intelligent person quick to champion colored folk and seduce the beautiful wife you once abused and neglected. Can it really be you, so handsome and untouched physically by the war? I wish I could hear your wife Laurel's thoughts about all these fantastic changes! You even set about restoring the dilapidated, southern town by bringing whites and blacks together to grow tobacco as owners of parcels of your extensive, unproductive land. What a great man you've become and all because of how you've suffered.

Funny, too, how such a lovely, land-rich woman as your wife didn't marry or even kiss this devoted, genial man she worked long hours with in the cotton fields, especially when she hated you, her supposedly dead husband. Perhaps, though, in the nineteenth century women were expected to wait several years after the end of the war to marry or even kiss again, even if they and their children starved.

I guess that also explains why there was zilch chemistry between Laurel and this other, hobbled man either implied or explicit. The sparks, though, sure flew between you and her, did they ever, and right from the beginning I could detect smoldering passion. After a loveless marriage and six years waiting, she was a soft peach just itching to be picked, but obviously you saw her differently now and it was true love for you both, obviously. Lucky you! Lucky Laurel!

Too bad those drifters came by looking for work in the tobacco fields. It didn't look like you appreciated something they said because you pulled out a knife. Jack, what were you thinking of? Were these fellows you knew in prison or the war maybe? They, of course, run into Orin, the disgruntled, hobbled lover, and spill what he had suspected all along, that you really aren't Jack Sommersby after all, but Horatio Hornblower, I mean, um, Horace Townsend. Yeah, that's it! Well, well, tell me, Horace, did you knife Jack and was that who you buried under big stones as this movie opened? Not talking now, eh?

My, what a knock down drag out fight you had with Orin in the barn! I think you would've been a goner if "your son" hadn?t nonchalantly come by and say, "Sir, your wife's having a baby." Or did he say "Ma?"

That shuts Orin up and you and Laurel look so blissful with your new daughter, but then at the baptism the law from another town strides in to arrest you for murder of someone else, someone that Jack killed. Won't you now confess who you really are, Horace? Won't Laurel admit you're not her husband, but has only pretended (like she seemingly did)?

Now things become a bit wacky as your trial begins and nobody makes much sense. Supposedly Laurel loves you, man, and you love her, but why are you trying to throw it all away? Why is she? Is honor more important or is it...love disguised?

You don't even try to save yourself, you fool! You would rather die for something you didn't do than bring dishonor to Laurel and little Rachel. I just don't buy it. You're a survivor, Horace, not a sacrificial lamb. Can a man change from years of being a reprehensible heel without morals into a dream husband and father, a wildly successful entrepreneur, town savior and Christ figure all for the sake of love?

As disarmingly as Richard Gere (Chicago) played you, man, from the Southern drawl to his pretty boy smile, that's more suspension of disbelief than I can muster, sorry. I like you, understand, and envied Jodie Foster (Contact) who so deliciously portrayed Laurel in every bated breath and imploring gaze. Your love scenes were genuine-like, although a bit boring after the first couple of times, I must confess. The writer of Fatal Attraction, Nicholas Meyer, was caught up in showing how love can also be fatal, I'm guessing!

Bill Pullman (While You Were Sleeping) looked simply exhausted as Orin and James Earl Jones (Coming To America) as the judge mostly came off as stern, unfortunately. Didn't you think so? There are some good observations made about race relations back then that ring true to my ears, which I appreciated and I applaud you, Horace, for bringing it out in the movie. That still doesn't make you (or Laurel) believable enough.

Jon Amiel (The Man Who Knew Too Little) directed this strikingly gorgeous, period picture, gorgeous except for those ghastly-looking worms, and Danny Elfman provided equally enrapturing music. 1993's Sommersby runs 114 rather languid minutes with little violence or comedy, but lots of romance and drama in a remake of 1982's The Return of Martin Guerre. I haven't seen that French film, but Gere probably has not done the Guerre character justice because of the change in setting and more contemporary vision and I suggest checking it out.

Opinions of this movie are all over the place and you may be blown away by its impact in a good way. I wasn't.


Recommended: No

Viewing Format: VHS