Definitely an old-fashioned film, and an exceptional one. Director Martin Ritt digs up a true story about a 30-year-old failed woman writer, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings who, in 1928, left her husband and went to live in an obscure part of the Florida Everglades to continue writing her 'Gothic romances'. Inevitably the lives of the dirt-poor people of the Creek became her life and she began to write about them instead. Her memoir, 'Cross Creek', was published in 1942 and ironically the weakest parts of this warm and gentle film are where her actual words are used. When Ritt relies on the screenplay written for him by Dalene Young, the movie is often a real heartbreaker. Not a lot happens to Marjorie in Cross Creek, yet you are never bored. And the performance of Mary Steenburgen as Marjorie, shamefully ignored in the Oscar race that year, is exactly the blend of femininity and strength that the role requires. Ritt pushes the lyricism a bit too hard at the end, but you could almost forgive him for over-dwelling on the lovely colour photography by John A Alonzo. The music (by Leonard Rosenman) is also excellent - and notably un-derivative.


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