Rating: PG13
Genre:
Drama
Theatrical Release: 09/09/1988(USA)
Release Date: 03/30/1999
Dubbed: English/French
Sound: 2
Run Time: 116 Minutes
Flags: Adult Situations, Questionable for Children, Adult Language
Distributor/Studio: Warner Home Video
In this
family drama from director
Sidney Lumet,
Judd Hirsch and
Christine Lahti play
Arthur and
Annie Pope, a pair of '60s radicals who have eluded the FBI for 16 years after bombing a napalm laboratory as a Vietnam War protest. This lifestyle involves continually moving their base of operations and establishing new identities, which is especially hard on their children, 18-year-old
Danny (
River Phoenix) and 10-year-old
Harry (
Jonas Abry), who can never amass a group of friends or an academic record. This last problem comes to the fore when they arrive in a New Jersey town where the high school music teacher (
Ed Crowley) takes an interest in
Danny's piano playing, encouraging him to apply early admission to Juilliard.
Danny yearns to follow this dream, but knows that separating from his parents would be a permanent break -- the aging hippies rarely even see their own parents, and can never inform anyone where they've moved.
Arthur can't stand the idea of breaking up the family unit, which has provided the support that's allowed him to tolerate life on the move, but
Annie sees her own sacrificed dreams in her son's prodigious musical talents, and begins pressuring
Arthur to grant the boy his independence. Complicating factors,
Danny has fallen in love with the daughter of his music teacher (
Martha Plimpton), but can't allow himself to get too close to her, because he may have to leave again at any moment.
~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide
;)
