The River

I honestly think the 1984 Save The Farm movies would have fared better if they had less generic titles. It never surprises me that movies with titles like The River and Country don't sell well, while a movie called Places in the Heart not only does well but lives on in the public consciousness. At least "The River" does describe this movie's central antagonist and most awesome spectacle. The River was based on recent events in Tennessee when many farmers unknowingly took jobs as strikebreakers at a local steel mill after heavy rains had destroyed their crops.

Director Mark Rydell (The Cowboys, The Rose, On Golden Pond) helmed this ambitious film that features cinematography from the legendary Vilmos Zsigmond and a lush score by John Williams. Sissy Spacek and Mel Gibson play Tom and Mae Garvey, a struggling farm couple in the Tennessee River Valley trying to keep their family's farm from sinking under the weight of bank foreclosures and floods. In addition to the economic and natural disasters, the Garveys face off against a selfish land developer played by Scott Glenn. To make ends meet, Tom takes a job working at a steel mill, but being reduced to a scab doesn’t win him many friends, and friends are what this family needs most at this time.

Of the three '84 Save The Farm movies, Places in the Heart, Country, and The River, Rydell's is the one that was made on the most massive scale. The filmmakers flooded an entire valley to shoot the impressive scenes of the Tennessee River overtaking the farmland at the picture's beginning and climax. This was also the first movie to win an Oscar for sound effects editing, which immediately became a regular Award category. The film was also nominated for Best Actress, Best Cinematography, Best Original Score, and Best Sound. Many critics at the time considered the young up-and-comer Mel Gibson miscast and lamented that the picture would have been far more successful if only Gibson and Glenn had swapped roles. I disagree. Gibson's stoic fortitude is just right for this part, and he manages the Tennessee accent well, even in his many scenes opposite the Texas-born Virginia resident, Spacek. The two have a strong chemistry that conveys the unique romantic and sexual reliance between this struggling husband and wife.

Anyway, Glenn is perfect in the role of the wealthy, opportunistic land developer. Never a mustache-twirling villain, Glenn's Joe Wade represents the inevitable wheel of progress that was transforming the farming profession away from families and towards agro-business. Tom and Mae's children, Shane Bailey and Becky Jo Lynch, are also wonderful. Lynch couldn't be more than five years old and gives one of the most distinctive yet authentic child performances I've ever seen in a movie. She's really, really good. James Tolkan, Billy "Green" Bush, and an infuriating Jack Starrett are all memorable character actors doing what memorable character actors do best.

But the most powerful aspect of this picture is its visually arresting nature. Zsigmond captures the beauty and the muck of farm life and gives the entire film a sweeping grandeur ideally suited to the tone Rydell and screenwriters Robert Dillon and Julian Barry are going for. This is also the most breathtakingly gorgeous the always natural beauty Spacek has ever been photographed. Whether sweety and covered in dust at magic hour or all dressed up for a tense meeting at the bank, Spacek looks incredible while always appearing exactly like the character she's playing would.

The River was the least successful of the three '84 Save The Farm films, but I'm convinced it's because it was the last to reach the screen. Audiences, and especially critics, had had their fill of this type of rural melodrama. And endings like the ones found here and in Country were, at this point, beginning to feel rote and unearned. In many ways, however, The River is the best of the three films. Everything people found to fault it in '84—its "picture-postcard beauty," Gibson being so young and good-looking, a villain whose goals and perspectives are more than valid, and the quaint idea that when communities can stand together they can stop, or at least slow down, the destructive forces of rapid-growth, bottom-line-driven capitalism—are some of its biggest strengths.