Search - Courtship on DVD

Wonderful . . .

Ronald Scheer | Los Angeles | 06/25/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In the events of one summer evening, a young woman comes to a decision that will change her life. During the course of this wonderful play by Horton Foote, we get a glimpse of a solid middle class family in a small Texas town. The year is 1915 and Victorian mores rule as a patriarchal father attempts to rein in the emotional yearnings of his daughter, who has fallen in love with a young man he does not approve of. Ever polite and respectful, her face a mask of composure, she reveals in long conversations with her sister and the young man courting her the inclinations of her heart and the uncertainty she experiences in judging whether the heart should guide one's most important choices and actions. Meanwhile, dance music floats in on the evening air, belying the turmoil of small-town melodrama that swirls around them in gossip about others, past and present, for whom affairs of the heart have gone awry or fully wrong.



Foote's play has been brought lovingly and faithfully to the screen. The long dialogues and monologues are magical in how they reflect the inner conflicts, the emotional negotiations made and unmade, and especially the graceful awkwardness of the two young lovers as they gently reveal their affection for each other on the front porch of her house, very much aware of the displeased father who roams the rooms inside. Like Foote's other plays, this one is for lovers of the spoken word and the theatre. I certainly loved every minute of it."