Ulee's Gold Movie Review

This was a comeback vehicle (of sorts) for Peter Fonda, because (surprise!) he's never been away, he's just been making the sort of pictures that don't win Golden Globes or Oscar nominations. He's always been good even when the rest of the flick isn't. In point of fact, Victor Nunez movies are slow, subtle films, so they need the best actors in the world (Ashley Judd in Ruby in Paradise, Peter Fonda in Ulee's Gold) to keep your eyes chained to the screen instead of your wristwatch. Ulee is a Florida beekeeper presiding over the lives of his grandchildren Casey and Penny (Jessica Biel and Vanessa Zima). Their father (Tom Wood as Ulee's son Jimmy) is incarcerated and their drug-addicted mother (Christine Dunford as Jimmy's wife Helen) has just come back into their lives along with a couple of thugs. The thugs are wild and crazy so Ulee doesn't have to be. His internal mechanism is working all the time, though; we can see it and feel it. Fonda is so good that we're more than happy just to watch him work for 111 minutes, especially when he inhabits a character who rarely speaks, but whose silences are so expressive. No one delivers this beautifully shaded a performance simply by showing up and saying lines. Take a look at Fonda's work since 1964's Lilith, like 1968's Spirits of the Dead or 1969's Easy Rider or 1974's Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry or 1976's 92 in the Shade or 1982's Split Image or his hilarious turn as Dr. Van Helsing in 1995's Nadja. I suspect that the cinematic prime of Professor Peter Fonda may well occur in the 21st century, far more than in the century of his birth (on February 23, 1939).

1997 (R) 111m/C Peter Fonda, Tom Wood, Vanessa Zima, Jessica Biel, Christine Dunford, Patricia Richardson, Steve Flynn, Dewey Weber, J. Kenneth Campbell; D: Victor Nunez; W: Victor Nunez; C: Virgil Marcus Mirano; M: Charles Engstrom. Golden Globe Awards ‘98: Best Actor—Drama (Fonda); New York Film Critics Awards ‘97: Best Actor (Fonda); Nominations: Academy Awards ‘97: Best Actor (Fonda); Independent Spirit Awards ‘98: Best Actor (Fonda), Best Director (Nunez), Best Film, Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actress (Richardson); Screen Actors Guild Award ‘97: Best Actor (Fonda). VHS, Closed Caption