I have seen that this 1989 TV movie got some stinking 'one star' reviews. I felt I ought to redress the balance. Now, I know some people are so downright contrary that they deliberately take the exact opposite opinion of somebody, or everybody else, just to upset and offend. But I should emphasize I am not like that. This is my sincere, honest opinion. Back in 1990 I was channel hopping and I caught this by accident. I was so thrilled by it I got it on video, and later bought the DVD. I watched this purely for its own merits, having no previous knowledge of "Jacob Have I Loved". I then found that the star of this movie was Bridget Fonda, the daughter of Peter Fonda (and granddaughter of Henry and niece of Jane). Again, at the time I had no knowledge of Bridget Fonda and did not know that she would become a prolific film actress, so my opinion of her acting abilities was not preconditioned by knowledge that she belonged to a great acting dynasty.
I found this was an adaptation of a children's novel of the same name by Katherine Paterson, which won the Newberry Prize for children's literature. I had never heard of the book, or its author, before watching the movie, so again, my judgement was not affected by knowledge that it was a dramatised children's book, which may have been just as well, because I read the book, and was not over-impressed. But I found that this TV movie deviated from the book in several ways. Maybe this was acceptable, inasmuch as when an author writes a book, they can use unlimited imagination, but turning this into a film could be quite difficult. I will not give too much away, but I will say that the novel is a first person narrative by a grown woman called Louise Bradshaw, reflecting on her life up to then, describing the events of many years, while the movie version misses many things that appear in the book, and telescopes all the action into a single year, starting with the news that the Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor, and concluding at about the end of 1942. Although the events of the Second World War are not directly dramatized, the characters in the film talk about how the War is affecting and changing their lives.
Right, having got through that I thought that the sequence of events in the movie was better than the book.
I thought this was the most incredible television movie I have ever seen. The location filming was fantastically beautiful. All the actors were superb, and played their roles to perfection. Bridget Fonda, as Louise Bradshaw, the central character of the film, gave the performance of a lifetime. I thought that Bridget Fonda conveyed the best variety of emotions that I have ever seen in any dramatic production. There were times when she said and did nothing,but still managed to convey incredible happiness, sadness, and with great poignancy, loneliness. I found the basic story compelling: Louise/Bridget Fonda feels she is overshadowed by other people, in particular her twin sister, Caroline (Jenny Robinson). Louise wishes to achieve something with her life,but fate seems to conspire to stop her realising her ambitions. Enter an old sea captain with a turbulent past (John Kellog) who helps her achieve some feelings of self worth. Things start to go well for Louise, then everything cruelly backfires for her, then, in the final few minutes, she quite unexpectedly achieves true happiness and liberating self discovery, that, one senses, will allow her to let go of the past and do whatever she wants with her life. I found the storyline, the symbolism of the story (storms of nature symbolise the traumas the characters face in their lives), and the force of acting by all the cast truly incredible. I really cannot praise the TV movie "Jacob Have I Loved" too highly.
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