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Storyline
Sassy Janie Starks looks unlike to get anywhere in pre-Great War Easton, Florida, but lands the best colored catch, lively shopkeeper Joe Starks, who even becomes town mayor. However her refusal to oblige his expectations of decency turn love into bitterness. After his death, she prefers to enjoy 'freedom' again, with cocky outsider 'Tea Cake' as playmate, and not just at chess. They even face the risks of seasonal labor. Written by
KGF Vissers
Plot Summary
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Did You Know?
Goofs
Eatonville is located in Central Florida, where the average elevation is close to sea level. The hills in the background in wide shots clearly betray the California shooting locations.
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Quotes
[
first lines]
Janie Starks:
There's two things everybody got to find out for theyselves: they got to find out about love, and they got to find out about living. Now, love is like the sea. It's a moving thing. And it's different on every shore. And living... well, I just come back from burying the dead.
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Taking on the adaptation of a literary classic like this one is daunting at best, but as always, Oprah is up to the task.
Being married to an elderly man at the age of 17 is ghastly, no matter how kind the man is. So we understand the attraction that Janie would have to Joe Starks, who, still much older than her, represented the whole wide world of possibilities to a young, uneducated Florida woman in the 1920's. Unfortunately, she became a trophy wife, valued only for her beauty and obedience, and not her mind. Although the 12-years her junior Tea Cake seems like the last person Janie should end up with after a relatively loveless 20-year marriage and eventual widowhood, appearances can be deceiving.
The story teaches that material things are all right in their place, but if we exchange them for real living and true love, we lose out. Even though there is a tragic end, you find yourself still happy that Janie experienced the kind of love we all dream about.