No Place Like Home (TV 1989)

A Pittsburgh apartment superintendent loses his job and home when the apartment building where he lives and works at is suddenly destroyed by fire. Daniel and his family moves in with his ... See full summary »

Director:

Lee Grant

Writers:

Ara Watson, Sam Blackwell

Stars:

Christine Lahti, Jeff Daniels, Kyndra Joy Casper

Won 1 Golden Globe. Another 1 win & 4 nominations.

Cast

Credited cast:
Christine Lahti	...	Zan Cooper
Jeff Daniels	...	Mike Cooper
Kyndra Joy Casper	...	Tina Cooper
Lantz Landry	...	David Cooper
Kathy Bates	...	Bonnie Cooper
CCH Pounder	...	Prue
Scott Marlowe	...	Eddie Cooper
Anne Pitoniak	...	Opal
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Rick Applegate	...	Policeman
Lamont Arnold	...	Crack Addict
Rick Aviles	...	J.J. (guard)
Vinson Baker	...	Hustler No. 1
G. Ross Berger	...	Man in Line
Catherine Butterfield	...	City Worker
William Cameron	...	Johnson

Storyline

A Pittsburgh apartment superintendent loses his job and home when the apartment building where he lives and works at is suddenly destroyed by fire. Daniel and his family moves in with his brother but that doesn't last for long due to the two families not getting along with each other. The family moves from rundown hotels to homeless shelters as Daniel searches work as a electrician while his wife takes waitress jobs to try to make ends meet.

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Plot Keywords:

apartment | apartment building | fire | homeless shelter | building superintendent | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

3 December 1989 (USA)

Also Known As:

Homeless

Filming Locations:

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), Joseph Feury Productions, Orion Television

Technical Specs

Runtime:

100 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Connections

Features The New Hollywood Squares (1986)

User Reviews

the most powerful made-for-tv movie i have ever seen

this is such a grim, heartbreaking, at times brutal movie, but i am very happy to have seen it for the fact it is so thought-provoking. this was made in the late 80s, and i remember seeing it with my grandmother in the early 1990s and wishing i had taped it. about ten years later i saw that it was in cable.

the coopers do not have a luxurious home, but the movie starts out with them living at least comfortable. christine lahti and jeff daniels (Michael) have paying jobs, and their children David (about 10) and Tina (about 5) are relatively happy as well. after a night out at a relatives house, they return to see their apartment has burned down. they stay for awhile with their respective relatives, but Michael has a strained relationship with his brother and it forces them out of the house. Thus begins their journey from living in a car, to a shelter, to public housing and then out on the street. Michael is forced to leave the family to look for work, and son David deals with his overwhelming feelings of embarrassment, anger and bitterness.

There is no happy ending in this movie. One person said it goes from bad to worse, and that's not a lie. The Coopers however, have enough love to go around, despite their hardships. But the performances by the actors playing Coopers are incredible. Christine Lahti is uniformly phenomenal as a mother whose decisions are driven by her desperation to keep her children warm and fed, and Jeff Daniels plays Michaels downward spiral so well. Kyndra Joy Casper was also terrific as Tina

But the standout performance, for me, was Lantz Landry who played David. I was blown away by him. His boyish enthusiasm and energy in the beginning slowly diminishes until he's somewhat of a shadow of his former self, sickly looking, disillusioned and embittered. He turns to drug dealing to raise money and harbors anger and resentment toward his father for leaving them until the very end. There is a particular scene between Lahti and Landry that is painful to watch, an outburst that occurs after they are forced to leave the public housing and Lahti blames him out of anger. He is a fabulous child actor (though since this was made in the eighties I'm sure he's well into his twenties now) and I wish he had appeared in more.

I would give this ten stars. This film evoked both thoughts and emotions from me. There's no beating around the bush in this movie, no sugar coating. It was flat out wonderful and the acting in this film was amazing.