IMDb > Sommersby (1993)
Sommersby
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Sommersby (1993) More at IMDbPro »

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Sommersby (1993) -- Open-ended Trailer from Warner Brothers Pictures

Overview

User Rating:
5.9/10   7,908 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Up 10% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.
Director:
Jon Amiel
Writers (WGA):
Daniel Vigne (film The Return of Martin Guerre) and
Jean-Claude Carrière (film The Return of Martin Guerre) ...
more
Contact:
View company contact information for Sommersby on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
5 February 1993 (USA) more
Genre:
Drama | Mystery | Romance more
Tagline:
She knew his face. His touch. His voice. She knew everything about him... But the truth.
Plot:
Set in the south of the United States just after the Civil War, Laurel Sommersby is just managing to work the farm without her husband Jack... more | add synopsis
Awards:
2 wins more
NewsDesk:
(2 articles)
Trailer for Paul Bettany's Charles Darwin Biopic 'Creation'
 (From FirstShowing.net. 12 June 2009, 2:39 AM, PDT)

Minority View: Sommersby by Jon Amiel
 (From DearCinema.com. 16 April 2009, 7:37 PM, PDT)

User Comments:
An intelligent, beautiful and moving epic more (44 total)

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Richard Gere ... John Robert 'Jack' Sommersby

Jodie Foster ... Laurel Sommersby

Bill Pullman ... Orin Meecham

James Earl Jones ... Judge Barry Conrad Issacs
Lanny Flaherty ... Buck
William Windom ... Reverend Powell

Wendell Wellman ... Travis
Brett Kelley ... Little Rob
Clarice Taylor ... Esther
Frankie Faison ... Joseph

R. Lee Ermey ... Dick Mead
Richard Hamilton ... Doc Evans

Karen Kirschenbauer ... Mrs. Evans
Carter McNeese ... Storekeeper Wilson
Dean Whitworth ... Tom Clemmons
more
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Additional Details

Also Known As:
Sommersby (France)
more
MPAA:
Rated PG-13 for sensuality.
Runtime:
114 min
Country:
France | USA
Language:
English
Color:
Color
Aspect Ratio:
2.35 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Dolby Digital
Filming Locations:
Appomattox, Virginia, USA more
Company:
Canal+ more

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
Original writer Nicholas Meyer walked off the production when Warner Brothers wouldn't let him direct his screenplay. Sarah Kernochan was drafted in to rewrite the script and was somewhat bemused to see that it was an Americanized version of Le retour de Martin Guerre (1982). Warners denied this in a rather obvious attempt not to have to buy the remake rights, but Kernochan insisted that they do before continuing as they weren't fooling anyone. Warners eventually relented, and also gave Meyer story credit. more
Goofs:
Anachronisms: At the meeting when Sommersby suggests growing tobacco, he asks someone how many years he had been sharecropping. Sharecropping only began in America after the Civil War when landowners had no slaves and no money to pay workers. more
Quotes:
Doc Evans: [Laurel is pregnant] I told you to use the fertilizer in the fields, Jack. more

FAQ

This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.
17 out of 21 people found the following comment useful.
An intelligent, beautiful and moving epic, 28 December 2001
Author: Geofbob from London, England

I'm sorry for this long digression, but Sommersby reminds me of Berthold Brecht's play The Good Woman of Szechuan, based on a biblical parable. In the original parable, two women each claim that a baby is hers. King Solomon says he'll settle the matter by cutting the baby in half; one woman stops him, saying that the other can have the baby. Solomon gives the baby to the woman who has offered to relinquish it, on the basis that she loves the baby more than the other, so she must be the real mother. But in Brecht's version it is the false mother who relinquishes, and is therefore given, the baby. Brecht draws the Marxist moral from the story that things belong to those who love and use them best, regardless of legal ownership.

Jon Amiel's beautiful and touching film, adapted from a French movie, makes much the same point - that the pretended Jack Sommersby (Richard Gere) deserves to be regarded as the true husband of Laurel (Jody Foster) because he loves her more than the legal one; deserves to be regarded as the owner of the Sommersby land because he works it better; and deserves Sommersby's name - whatever that brings - because he honours it more.

At a realistic level there are a few difficulties in translating the original Martin Guerre story from the Middle Ages to the post Civil War era, and parts of the courtroom sequence could have been more incisive; but these flaws are of little account, compared with the overall sweep of the film, both plot-wise, but especially visually. It achieves epic proportions at some points, and there are wide vistas of people working in the fields reminiscent of Terrence Mallick's Days of Heaven, which also starred Gere.

It seems to be the done thing on these postings to sneer at Gere's acting; I've no idea why. Time after time, in a wide range of parts and films - from Yanks and An Officer and a Gentleman to Internal Affairs and Pretty Woman - he delivers professional and sensitive performances. Here again, his performance is impeccable; as is that of Jodie Foster, whose part calls for her to be restrained, especially when Sommersby first appears. (Incidentally, I couldn't care less whether there was any so-called chemistry between Gere and Foster; some film-goers should get it into their heads that couples on the screen are acting at making love, not engaging in the real activity.)



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