"The Year That Trembled" is a low budget indie drama full of has-beens and never-wases with poor execution and nothing going for it save the hot button issues derived from the deep gash in the American civilian population caused by the Vietnam conflict (circa 1970). Considering the whole matter of Vietnam has been examined countless times from all angles in much better formats and forums than this film from documentaries to dramas to all manner of hybrids, it's difficult to find a reason to recommend a film with such severe limitations and deficits as this one. Pass. (C-)
13 Reviews
The Year That Never Ended
spectre316-17 July 2005
This movie was filmed in my hometown. Well, some of it was. During the filming, the town was in very high spirits -- a movie, on our streets! Hell, even I was happy, cynical as I may be. Jonathan Brandis? Yes, please.
About two months ago, I finally found a VHS copy at the local library. And I watched it. And it went on. And on. And on. And on.
The film has a semi-decent beginning, but the constant usage of "flashbacks" (which in this case are long, dreary segments of stock footage circa 1970) made me want to take a long nap. The acting isn't spectacular, but it's okay. Brandis in particular did pretty well.
The dialogue is very cheesy at times. The plot is somewhat hard to follow, with characters you simply don't care about and begin to hate halfway through for getting a movie to their boring selves.
It's sad when the only thing I got from it was "oh, look! That.. that street I played on when I was ten!" It's just an incredibly tedious experience. The settings are drab, the cinematography is boring, the story is sleep-inducing, the characters are .. uh, I don't know. I need another adjective.
Watch something else. Unless below mediocre boring stuff is your cup of tea.
About two months ago, I finally found a VHS copy at the local library. And I watched it. And it went on. And on. And on. And on.
The film has a semi-decent beginning, but the constant usage of "flashbacks" (which in this case are long, dreary segments of stock footage circa 1970) made me want to take a long nap. The acting isn't spectacular, but it's okay. Brandis in particular did pretty well.
The dialogue is very cheesy at times. The plot is somewhat hard to follow, with characters you simply don't care about and begin to hate halfway through for getting a movie to their boring selves.
It's sad when the only thing I got from it was "oh, look! That.. that street I played on when I was ten!" It's just an incredibly tedious experience. The settings are drab, the cinematography is boring, the story is sleep-inducing, the characters are .. uh, I don't know. I need another adjective.
Watch something else. Unless below mediocre boring stuff is your cup of tea.
Once the film zeroes in on the main characters and plot events, it grabs your attention and hangs on.
meadowlark15 April 2002
Helen Gardner (Marin Hinkle) teaches at a high school near Kent State University. She is an activist against the war in Vietnam, as are some of her students. On May 4, 1970, they hear news of the shootings at Kent State. As a result of her activities, Helen is fired from her job. She marries a young aspiring lawyer (Jonathan M. Woodward) who throws his energy into a legal suit on behalf of those students who were shot.
Four of Helen's senior students (Jonathan Brandis, Charlie Finn, Sean Nelson, and Lucas Ford) graduate and rent a farmhouse next door to their former teacher and her husband. We follow these people, as well as others they become involved with, for the next year as they stave off the law, protest the war, and try to make some beginning in life while facing the likelihood of being drafted and sent to Vietnam.
The title comes from a poem from Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass".
"YEAR that trembled and reel'd beneath me!/ Your summer wind was warm enough-yet the air I breathed froze me;/ A thick gloom fell through the sunshine and darken'd me;/ Must I change my triumphant songs? said I to myself;/ Must I indeed learn to chant the cold dirges of the baffled?/ And sullen hymns of defeat?"
Jay Craven captures in drama the times and the concerns that "Hair" captured as a musical, as he focuses on one of the pivotal events of that time--the shooting of students at Kent State--and how that event and the war that spawned it, affected others in the surrounding communities.
He skillfully interweaves stock footage of film and tv broadcasts from that period, with the fictional lives of some young people (and some old) who were closely connected with those events and were trying to figure out how to relate to a society that seemed to have lost its way.
But the film is not abstractly political, keeping its attention on the personal concerns of the characters in all their ambivalence. Jonathan Brandis, in particular, brings a strong screen presence to his role as the point-of-view character in an ensemble cast, and Charlie Finn provides engaging comic relief as the goofy, but believable, Jim "Hairball" Morton. Henry Gibson, Fred Willard, and Martin Mull show the sympatheticif not altogether trustworthyother side of the generation gap that had split along some fault-line in time.
The film is somewhat structurally unfocused in its early part. It took a while to get a sense of each characterlonger than can be afforded in a feature film, I'd say. Hairball, for example, at first seemed simply awkward as an actor, rather than goofy as a character. Jay R. Ferguson was excellent in his crucial role, but could have gotten the same effect with less screen time. Others could have been given shorter shrift or perhaps no shrift at all.
But once the film zeroes in on the main characters and plot events, it grabs your attention and hangs on.
Four of Helen's senior students (Jonathan Brandis, Charlie Finn, Sean Nelson, and Lucas Ford) graduate and rent a farmhouse next door to their former teacher and her husband. We follow these people, as well as others they become involved with, for the next year as they stave off the law, protest the war, and try to make some beginning in life while facing the likelihood of being drafted and sent to Vietnam.
The title comes from a poem from Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass".
"YEAR that trembled and reel'd beneath me!/ Your summer wind was warm enough-yet the air I breathed froze me;/ A thick gloom fell through the sunshine and darken'd me;/ Must I change my triumphant songs? said I to myself;/ Must I indeed learn to chant the cold dirges of the baffled?/ And sullen hymns of defeat?"
Jay Craven captures in drama the times and the concerns that "Hair" captured as a musical, as he focuses on one of the pivotal events of that time--the shooting of students at Kent State--and how that event and the war that spawned it, affected others in the surrounding communities.
He skillfully interweaves stock footage of film and tv broadcasts from that period, with the fictional lives of some young people (and some old) who were closely connected with those events and were trying to figure out how to relate to a society that seemed to have lost its way.
But the film is not abstractly political, keeping its attention on the personal concerns of the characters in all their ambivalence. Jonathan Brandis, in particular, brings a strong screen presence to his role as the point-of-view character in an ensemble cast, and Charlie Finn provides engaging comic relief as the goofy, but believable, Jim "Hairball" Morton. Henry Gibson, Fred Willard, and Martin Mull show the sympatheticif not altogether trustworthyother side of the generation gap that had split along some fault-line in time.
The film is somewhat structurally unfocused in its early part. It took a while to get a sense of each characterlonger than can be afforded in a feature film, I'd say. Hairball, for example, at first seemed simply awkward as an actor, rather than goofy as a character. Jay R. Ferguson was excellent in his crucial role, but could have gotten the same effect with less screen time. Others could have been given shorter shrift or perhaps no shrift at all.
But once the film zeroes in on the main characters and plot events, it grabs your attention and hangs on.
Not unlike sitting through back-to-back episodes of American Dreams...with less energy
Limeginger20 August 2005
Important depiction of a time arguably as turbulent as our current. However, links (or even intimations of them) from past to present are lacking in this film. A faded standalone snapshot, the mood unimpassioned, (ironic given the manic, "trembling" tenor of those times). No room is made or left over for extrapolation or lessons learned--a great opportunity missed. Instead we're dished up startlingly superficial and hackneyed treatment of the era, ineffective character development, and lackluster performances from most of the cast. Further, the film is riddled with anachronisms and suffers from romanticism and historical revisionism--so it comes off as shallow and clichéd. Perhaps this film was made by people too young to understand the flavor of those times. If not, perhaps the filmmakers are part of a well-meaning but removed elite, who took their very best shot at depicting the lives and dramas of their characters, but the closest they could come was creating an approximated, somewhat patronizing, overly polite, "as-if" characterization--which naturally lacks passion, flow, human depth and complexity, and realism. In sum, it's like watching back to back episodes of the mundane NBC drama "American Dreams" (albeit, with a more liberal lean, fortunately), without the energy level. Just about that insightful, realistic, and compelling. In sum, clearly an earnest effort, tho emotionally blunted overall.
The Year That Put Me To Sleep
coma_fire6 April 2002
Within the last year or two I've seen a lot of bad movies (The Mexican) but this tops the list as being the worst yet. Creativity is at a complete loss and the casting of actors was even worse. I'd rather see an independent film with unknown actors rather than having to watch Jonathan Brandis prance around the set as if he had a bad case of hemorrhoids. The guy looks disgruntled and constipated throughout the whole film, even when he's engaging in sexual activities with beautiful but untalented actresses. Too much of the film deals with teens smoking pot and discussing (and repeating) the consequences of being drafted into the Vietnam War. Apparently in 1970 that's all that people did, at least that's all that the overly pretentious title represents. With any luck at all The Year that Trembled could be released as a TV movie due to its semi-familiar faces.
The Film That Stumbled
NoDakTatum21 October 2023
Based on a novel by Scott Lax that I was not familiar with, "The Year That Trembled" takes twelve months in the lives of Vietnam-era Ohioans and turns it into a very special episode of "American Dreams." Jonathan Brandis is sullen but idealistic writer Casey, secretly in love with his recently fired idealistic teacher Helen (Marin Hinkle). Helen is married to idealistic law clerk Charlie (Jonathan M. Woodward), who is involved in some sort of lawsuit concerning the 1970 Kent State shootings. Idealistic Judy (Meredith Monroe) and FBI undercover agent Isaac (Jay R. Ferguson) are busy protesting the draft, which will soon affect Charlie, Casey, and a stoner named Hairball (Charlie Finn), who has no idealistic ideas.
I have at least half a dozen other characters' names written down in my notes, from the token minority who worships both Buddha and Jimi Hendrix to that little girl from "The Wonder Years" all grown up. Therein lies the major malfunction of the film. Screenwriter/director Craven tries so hard to cram everything in, the viewer is overwhelmed, especially when the movie feels like a bunch of outtakes glued together to make a story. Casey is a writer, the title comes from Walt Whitman, but what does Casey write? Much lawsuit talk is bandied about, but you would need a J. D. degree to understand just what is going on. I thought I was going to have to break out a flow chart to keep track of everyone. Having former child actors and some comedians (Fred Willard, Martin Mull, Henry Gibson) in such a heavy-handed drama feels a lot like stunt casting. I thought two blond characters, Jennifer and Judy, were the same person for close to ten minutes of the film's running time. "The Year That Trembled"'s heart is in the right place, and the film almost comes to life when one major character is actually sent to Vietnam. However, when a film trudges along under its own moral outrage, without getting the viewer to feel empathy, it fails.
I have at least half a dozen other characters' names written down in my notes, from the token minority who worships both Buddha and Jimi Hendrix to that little girl from "The Wonder Years" all grown up. Therein lies the major malfunction of the film. Screenwriter/director Craven tries so hard to cram everything in, the viewer is overwhelmed, especially when the movie feels like a bunch of outtakes glued together to make a story. Casey is a writer, the title comes from Walt Whitman, but what does Casey write? Much lawsuit talk is bandied about, but you would need a J. D. degree to understand just what is going on. I thought I was going to have to break out a flow chart to keep track of everyone. Having former child actors and some comedians (Fred Willard, Martin Mull, Henry Gibson) in such a heavy-handed drama feels a lot like stunt casting. I thought two blond characters, Jennifer and Judy, were the same person for close to ten minutes of the film's running time. "The Year That Trembled"'s heart is in the right place, and the film almost comes to life when one major character is actually sent to Vietnam. However, when a film trudges along under its own moral outrage, without getting the viewer to feel empathy, it fails.
A memory of a time of another generation
frank-18424 March 2002
"The Year That Trembled" creates a memory of a time of another generation... the May 4, 1970 shootings at Kent State University when four students were killed by Ohio National Guard, and the Vietnam war draft lottery that followed. Starring Martin Mull, Fred Willard and Henry Gibson in supporting dramatic roles, the story follows students who actively oppose the war, then are faced with the decisions of how to respond to their personal destiny with the war. A wonderful film that recalls a different time that we should never forget. Bravo to Jay Craven, Scott Lax and the filmmakers of "The Year That Trembled."
The Film That Stunk
guenbee14 April 2002
This is one of those things you marvel at: why did Martin Mull, Henry Gibson and Fred Willard do this? They couldn't have done it for the money. This film is so cheap that they have Fred carrying a kid to Canada on his moped (top speed 20 mph) from the Cleveland area. You know this because there's a sign by the side of the road that says" Border Crossing." He gives his daughter a present wrapped in crudely chopped up construction paper (they couldn't have sent someone to the local CVS for 50 cents worth of wrapping paper?) The make up seems to have been done by the local undertaker - Henry Gibson's face looks downright cooked.
And these are minor concerns. The continuity, the dialogue, the plot! Oy! For those of you who have no idea of what happened at Kent State 30 some years ago - this ain't gonna help!
And these are minor concerns. The continuity, the dialogue, the plot! Oy! For those of you who have no idea of what happened at Kent State 30 some years ago - this ain't gonna help!
You have to see it twice!
allspice3015 January 2003
I saw this movie "The Year That Trembled" twice. Once in Cleveland and once in Savannah! I admit the first time I saw it I had some concerns! But no complaints! I found myself wanting to see it again. I did see it again! It's much better the second time around!!!!! I can't wait for the DVD to come out so I can watch it over and over! Jonathan Brandis is wonderful in this movie! I believe it's his best film yet! A very grown up side of him. He's matured alot. His affection with his former teacher Helen was played out well! It just breaks your heart at the end. Oh sure it's a movie about the Vietnam War time period but it's also a love story! Beautifully written and directed! You just have to see it TWICE to understand it! I can't wait for the DVD to come out!!
interesting
meghanw3 February 2004
Movie was very interesting. Would have been even better if the DVD had captionings or subtitles, which it didn't have. Otherwise I thought the movie was well done. The actual footages throughout the movie were very interesting! And I enjoyed Jonathan Brandis' performance (hard to believe he's gone for good).
This movie has a lot of heart.
robin_lewis13 April 2002
To me, this agreeable independent film is exactly what movie making should be about. There is a lot of heart in this story about an introspective young man and his friends dealing with the effects of an unpopular war on their small town lives. The film adaptation of the novel "The Year that Trembled" craftily inundates the peaceful setting of a farmhouse in a meadow with all the passions of 1970 anti-Vietnam War activities ranging from the serious to the inane. Reel footage from the period is artfully infused into the film, as are new characters whose presence and values help explain the legal, political and emotional moods of the era to those unfamiliar with that time. The result was a film that, although choppy at times, was most enjoyable.
The characters were all well played. The only disappointment for me was that the part played by Casey (the book's eloquent main character) was diminished in order to develop the other roles.
The characters were all well played. The only disappointment for me was that the part played by Casey (the book's eloquent main character) was diminished in order to develop the other roles.
Goodmorning, Vietnam
Benedict_Cumberbatch16 April 2007
"The Year that Trembled" tells the tense story of young writer Casey Pedersen (former child actor Jonathan Brandis, who committed suicide one year after the movie was released) and his friends, who have to face the Vietnam Draft Lottery in the early 1970's.
Based on a Scott Lax novel, "The Year that Trembled" has a compelling premise; however, the predominantly young cast isn't as convincing as in other Jay Craven's movies (veterans Henry Gibson and Fred Willard are always a pleasure to watch, though). Meredith Monroe, of "Dawson's Creek" fame, makes the best impression; she was pretty good in a brief appearance in the made-for-TV flick "Fathers and Sons" and has proved she's got talent. It's curious to see Danica McKellar (the cute girl from "The Wonder Years") in a small part. Although not the best Jay Craven film, "The Year that Trembled" has some inspired, sensitive moments and is worth a visit. My vote: 6.5/10.
Based on a Scott Lax novel, "The Year that Trembled" has a compelling premise; however, the predominantly young cast isn't as convincing as in other Jay Craven's movies (veterans Henry Gibson and Fred Willard are always a pleasure to watch, though). Meredith Monroe, of "Dawson's Creek" fame, makes the best impression; she was pretty good in a brief appearance in the made-for-TV flick "Fathers and Sons" and has proved she's got talent. It's curious to see Danica McKellar (the cute girl from "The Wonder Years") in a small part. Although not the best Jay Craven film, "The Year that Trembled" has some inspired, sensitive moments and is worth a visit. My vote: 6.5/10.
Where did everyone go?
mprozaic21 October 2002
That was my question. Characters were introduced and used throughout the film, but then they randomly disappear, never to be seen or heard from again.
And the ending made absolutely no sense. It just ended.
Jonathan Brandis should have given up after his childhood movies or at least taken some acting classes because he is by far one of the worse actors in this film. Of course the worse actress would be Kierra Chaplin. She is a model and that is what she should continue to do. Ms. Chaplin is French and this film is set in northeast Ohio. It seemed extremely out of place for her to have a French accent in this film.
Besides the shallow and disapearing characters, the story istself is not that great. Everyone and everything seems to be about THE WAR. Everything is about THE WAR. I know that the Vietnam War was a huge issue back in the 70's, but I also know that it wasn't the only issue.
Overall, this movie was terrible and a waste of my time. I give it a 3/10. It only earns it's 3 because of the interesting and beautiful (what looked like) archive footage from the 70's.
And the ending made absolutely no sense. It just ended.
Jonathan Brandis should have given up after his childhood movies or at least taken some acting classes because he is by far one of the worse actors in this film. Of course the worse actress would be Kierra Chaplin. She is a model and that is what she should continue to do. Ms. Chaplin is French and this film is set in northeast Ohio. It seemed extremely out of place for her to have a French accent in this film.
Besides the shallow and disapearing characters, the story istself is not that great. Everyone and everything seems to be about THE WAR. Everything is about THE WAR. I know that the Vietnam War was a huge issue back in the 70's, but I also know that it wasn't the only issue.
Overall, this movie was terrible and a waste of my time. I give it a 3/10. It only earns it's 3 because of the interesting and beautiful (what looked like) archive footage from the 70's.
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
