Shadrach . Newcity Chicago . 10-19-98

Shadrach

DIRECTED BY: Susanna Styron

REVIEWED: 10-19-98

The title character, a ninety-nine year old ex-slave, returns to his old plantation grounds with a wish to be buried there. Told from the perspective of an affluent boy spending time with the hick family whose owns the land, the film ostensibly recounts the summer he learned not to fear death, learned that it's living that'll kill ya. As the hick patriarch, Harvey Keitel gets to wear a stained wifebeater t-shirt and exclaim "Goddamsonofabitch" quite a few times, while his wife Andie MacDowell fans herself and squints in the Depression-era Deep South heat, the best-realized thing in the film. The details of rural summer life are vivid (the family's too easy in their bodies to warrant a G rating) but it's never explained why only the children understand Shadrach's mutterings, or why Keitel feels obligated to bury him in the first place. When at last we're smacked with the great moral lesson ("And that was the summer...."), we feel cheated. Especially after having had to endure a protracted scene in which MacDowell cleans Shadrach after he's soiled himself in the family's rickety old car.

--Ellen Fox

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