I watched this movie when I was 12, and it seriously screwed with my brain. I couldn't stop crying. Is it melodramatic? Yes. Is there anything happy or positive about it? Not really.

I know that people either love or hate this movie, but for me it's more multilayered than that. This movie taught me something about not making harsh judgments about people, and the desperate need people have for kindness. These lessons have been invaluable in my life.

The vibe almost borrows from To Kill a Mockingbird. You wish the poor girl in this movie could just find some peace, but she can't. So many broken people in this world can't find peace, and that's the point. To stop and ask yourself why...

When this won the audience award at the Sundance Film Festival in 1996, a lot of critics sharpened their knives, because the film was produced with money from a religious group, and they thought it was pushing religion on the masses. The truth is, only a couple of scenes take place at a church, and there's nothing particularly "religious" about the storyline. Having got that out of the way, this is another instance where good performances and a promising story are sunk by melodrama. The two good performances are Alison Elliot as Percy, the ex-convict, and the underrated Marcia Gay Harden as Shelby, the housewife who becomes her best friend. The movie is best in the scenes between the two of them(like when they're cooking breakfast together at the grill for the first time), and I also liked the way first time director Lee David Zlotoff uses the outdoors. But he's got a lot to learn about writing, as the movie gradually becomes melodramatic, with so much plot thrown in you're suffocating in it. Also, Will Patton, who I like, is stuck playing such a one-note character he might as well have "Warning: Plot Device" written on him, and Ellen Burstyn does her crotchety old woman again. All in all, a missed opportunity.

For a film that won the audience award at Sundance, this film must have played briefly in this area, as I have no memory of it when it was released. I saw it on cable recently; it was a surprise, but in retrospect, there are a few things that bothered me later.

It appears this is the first film for the director. Lee David Zlotoff is a product of television, as far as I've learned. Not having seen anything he has created before, I can only compare this film to similar fare one sees in the "movie-of-the-week" film made for that medium.

I have no way of knowing if the accents these actors speak are really from Maine, or from the South, as I have never met any one from that state where the action takes place. That said, the film will not disappoint because it tells a good story. It's easy to like, although it is predictable.

Young Percy Talbot can't shake her past. Instead of fleeing to a big city and getting lost there, she selects the small town of Gilead in rural Maine. Her choice of locales will proves Percy wrong. In the town, she manages to touch the lives of a lot of the local folk, who in return, show her kindness, after an initial rejection.

Allison Elliott was effective as the young woman. Ellen Burstyn, as Hannah, is quite good. Marcia Gay Harden underplays Shelby, the woman who gains Percy's trust. Will Patton is the only one that has nothing to do in the film.