This little
piece of drama-romance movie is one very good movie. Surely most people
never heard of Winter People. Kurt Russell moves with his daughter
after her mom dies. They decide to move to a little town in the US. The
setting is around the 1930's. Where he goes there are bad peasants and
good ones. Of course Russell goes with the good ones. He meets the lovely
Kelly McGillis whom he falls in love. One problem...she has a husband from
the bad peasants. Whom she is pregnant of. And when the he starts beating
her up again in her little wooden house, Russell accidently kills the him.
Dead, he is put on his horse in the cold weather as the horse will stroll
back to his dad's (played by Lloyd Bridges) house (of the bad farmers that
is). Doing so, it'll look like the husband had died from the cold weather.
Of course things start to get suspicious and Lloyd Bridges knows better.
A dramatic entanglement is the consequence whereas either Russell must
leave the town with his daughter or Kelly McGillis must go to her husband's
father and stay with them forever, serving them. And I forgot to mention
Russell is a clockmaker in this movie who lights up the little town he
moves with the big clock on the village's church. Lovely, charming little
piece of classic and very fine moving performances by the whole cast.
This is a film that took me by surprise. Impressive in its delicate
sensiblity of the human emotions. This is best illustrated at Kurt Russell's
outburst when one of his clocks is destroyed. Well directed and well acted.
One of Russell's best acting performances. Not an action film, or anything
to really rock you in your seat but a powerful human story. Something totally
different from my usual likings of sci-fi/action or adventure films. A
real winner. I give it a 10 out of 10.
Here are some photographs from the sets of Winter People. The pictures were taken a few years ago:
