Sommersby (1993)

User Rating:

5.9/10   

Director:

Jon Amiel

Writers (WGA):

Daniel Vigne (film The Return of Martin Guerre) and
Jean-Claude Carrière (film The Return of Martin Guerre) ...

Release Date:

5 February 1993 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Mystery | Romance

Tagline:

She knew his face. His touch. His voice. She knew everything about him... But the truth.

Plot:

Set in the south of the United States just after the Civil War, Laurel Sommersby is just managing to work the farm without her husband Jack...

Plot Keywords:

Impersonation | Remake | One Word Title | Courtroom | Historical

Awards:

2 wins

Cast

Richard Gere	...	John Robert 'Jack' Sommersby
Jodie Foster	...	Laurel Sommersby
Bill Pullman	...	Orin Meecham
James Earl Jones	...	Judge Barry Conrad Issacs
Lanny Flaherty	...	Buck
William Windom	...	Reverend Powell
Wendell Wellman	...	Travis
Brett Kelley	...	Little Rob
Clarice Taylor	...	Esther
Frankie Faison	...	Joseph
R. Lee Ermey	...	Dick Mead
Richard Hamilton	...	Doc Evans
Karen Kirschenbauer	...	Mrs. Evans
Carter McNeese	...	Storekeeper Wilson
Dean Whitworth	...	Tom Clemmons

Also Known As:

Sommersby (France)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for sensuality.

Runtime:

114 min

Country:

France | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Iceland:12 | France:Unrated | Germany:12 | South Korea:15 | Argentina:13 | Chile:14 | Finland:K-12 | Norway:10 (1993) | Peru:14 | Singapore:PG | Spain:T | Sweden:11 | UK:12 | USA:PG-13

Filming Locations:

Appomattox, Virginia, USA

Company:

Alcor Films

Trivia:

The cow is named "Clarice", which was the name of Jodie Foster's character in The Silence of the Lambs (1991).

Goofs:

Anachronisms: At the meeting when Sommersby suggests growing tobacco, he asks someone how many years he had been sharecropping. Sharecropping only began in America after the Civil War when landowners had no slaves and no money to pay workers.

Quotes:

Doc Evans: [Laurel is pregnant] I told you to use the fertilizer in the fields, Jack.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Will & Grace: Object of My Rejection (#1.22)" (1999)

Sweet and noble tear jerker

This is a sweet film with noble causes and a grand love story. I've seen it umm, 4 times? now... An improbable story, but moral, epic, just after the civil war, of an imposter southern gentleman returning to his run down plantation, wife, child, and joining all together, black and white, to bring a tobacco farm to being, against great odds, and prosperity to the town.

But the man he is posing as must be prosecuted as a criminal... the imposter can continue the ruse and die for the crime, or confess his true identity, and undo his love, his work, his community. He must prove to the court that he is indeed Jack Sommersby, and must extract Fosters (his wife's) testimony, against her will, that he is Jack Sommersby, because as Jack, he will die. A few grand lines... when Foster must say that he is indeed her husband, that she never loved "Jack the way I loved you" and Gere, in his cell, asks her to be there at his hanging "I can do this thing if you are there."

I've enjoyed it each time I've seen it, and it brings grand tears each time.