The honey that "Tupelo Honey" refers to is not somebody wife or main squeeze. It refers to the honey produced by bees that have been mucking around in the blossoms of the Florida tupelo trees, which only are in bloom for a few weeks. This makes for a high-end honey.
The bees kept by Peter Fonda play a weighty symbolic role in this film. They get along, so why can't we? As we all know, bees are divided into classes. First, there is the queen bee. She's fed royal jelly in her блины. Besides the queen bee, or rather beneath her, are the workers, the drones, the soldiers, the Viscounts, the peons, the serfs, the bishops and rooks, and the châtelaines. There are others, many of mixed race, but you don't need to know all of them to enjoy the movie.
I think this role earned Peter Fonda a Golden Globe Award and he deserved it. He's all guardedness and reserve. The death of his wife six years ago has left him emotionally bankrupt. His two grand-daughters don't pay him much attention as he goes about the time-consuming business of schlepping bee hives and barrels around the woodland apiary. His son is in the slams for a robbery. Then, reluctantly, he agrees to his son's desperate plea to Fonda to rescue his daughter-in-law from abject distress in Orlando. When they wouldn't let her into Disneyworld she went spastic and has been strung out and in the hands of two really evil young men ever since.
Fonda reluctantly drives to Orlando to take her home. The two miscreants happily hand over the strung out woman, having had their fill of her, but they inform Fonda that they were his son's accomplices and they have reason to believe the son stashed a hoard of money from the robbery. They want the money or else they'll pay a visit to Fonda's family. The daughter-in-law, Christine Dunford, is in awful shape. Her performance is outstanding. Fonda enlists the help of a neighboring woman, a nurse, Patricia Richardson, to put Dunford to bed, restrain her, and keep her sedated.
Meanwhile, Fonda's demanding work with the tupelo honey is falling behind schedule. At about this point, the story loses some of its sense of abject despair. With the help of Dunford's two daughters and the sensible next-door nurse, things improve. Dunford regains her identity and her daughters gradually warm to her.
It's nicely directed too. Fonda has been fiercely independent since he became a widower. But now, coming home sleepless from work in the field, his back killing him, he leans against the kitchen wall. His daughter-in-law asks if she can fix him something to eat. He replies, "A glass of water would be nice." And the director, Victor Nunez, lets us see Dunford turn on the tap, fill the glass with water, hand it to Fonda, and the camera pauses while he drinks the entire contents.
The business with the two unsavory robbers continues apace. The dominant of the two, Steven Flynn, does a truly good job of being what he is, carrying around with him a dull glow of foreboding. The director hands him an impressive introduction. Fonda visits the pool hall and Flynn has just made a shot. His eyes follow the pool ball and then slowly rise to stare with a phony smile at Fonda. But he's always polite. Fonda is "Mr. Jackson" or "Sir," even when Flynn is holding a revolver to his ear.
It gets more tense as it turns from domestic drama to crime story, which I won't get into except to say that not a shot is fired and no one gets his head wrenched off.
Start it and stick with it for a while.
The bees kept by Peter Fonda play a weighty symbolic role in this film. They get along, so why can't we? As we all know, bees are divided into classes. First, there is the queen bee. She's fed royal jelly in her блины. Besides the queen bee, or rather beneath her, are the workers, the drones, the soldiers, the Viscounts, the peons, the serfs, the bishops and rooks, and the châtelaines. There are others, many of mixed race, but you don't need to know all of them to enjoy the movie.
I think this role earned Peter Fonda a Golden Globe Award and he deserved it. He's all guardedness and reserve. The death of his wife six years ago has left him emotionally bankrupt. His two grand-daughters don't pay him much attention as he goes about the time-consuming business of schlepping bee hives and barrels around the woodland apiary. His son is in the slams for a robbery. Then, reluctantly, he agrees to his son's desperate plea to Fonda to rescue his daughter-in-law from abject distress in Orlando. When they wouldn't let her into Disneyworld she went spastic and has been strung out and in the hands of two really evil young men ever since.
Fonda reluctantly drives to Orlando to take her home. The two miscreants happily hand over the strung out woman, having had their fill of her, but they inform Fonda that they were his son's accomplices and they have reason to believe the son stashed a hoard of money from the robbery. They want the money or else they'll pay a visit to Fonda's family. The daughter-in-law, Christine Dunford, is in awful shape. Her performance is outstanding. Fonda enlists the help of a neighboring woman, a nurse, Patricia Richardson, to put Dunford to bed, restrain her, and keep her sedated.
Meanwhile, Fonda's demanding work with the tupelo honey is falling behind schedule. At about this point, the story loses some of its sense of abject despair. With the help of Dunford's two daughters and the sensible next-door nurse, things improve. Dunford regains her identity and her daughters gradually warm to her.
It's nicely directed too. Fonda has been fiercely independent since he became a widower. But now, coming home sleepless from work in the field, his back killing him, he leans against the kitchen wall. His daughter-in-law asks if she can fix him something to eat. He replies, "A glass of water would be nice." And the director, Victor Nunez, lets us see Dunford turn on the tap, fill the glass with water, hand it to Fonda, and the camera pauses while he drinks the entire contents.
The business with the two unsavory robbers continues apace. The dominant of the two, Steven Flynn, does a truly good job of being what he is, carrying around with him a dull glow of foreboding. The director hands him an impressive introduction. Fonda visits the pool hall and Flynn has just made a shot. His eyes follow the pool ball and then slowly rise to stare with a phony smile at Fonda. But he's always polite. Fonda is "Mr. Jackson" or "Sir," even when Flynn is holding a revolver to his ear.
It gets more tense as it turns from domestic drama to crime story, which I won't get into except to say that not a shot is fired and no one gets his head wrenched off.
Start it and stick with it for a while.