Director Tom Moore, whose only previous movie experience was the disastrous 'Return to Boggy Creek' horror film in 1978, seems a strange choice to film this gruelling but ultimately stagebound version of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play. But it is a small triumph on its own terms for Moore, who directed the original stage version. Sissy Spacek is intensely moving as the daughter who wants to end her own life and whose logic about that decision confounds her hysterical mother (Anne Bancroft). However, this was yet another example of Hollywood casting glamorous young stars over established Broadway actors. Kathy Bates played Miss Spacek's part in the original production just as she played Michelle Pfeiffer's role in 'Frankie and Johnnie'. And that's a crying shame!


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