Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Overlooked Movies -- Stealing Home

You regular readers know that I'm a sucker for coming-of-age stories, and this movie is a good one. I saw it more than 20 years ago and still remember how it made me feel.

Mark Harmon is a talented baseball player who's never lived up to expectations, his own or those of others. The movie opens when he's called to come back to his home after the death of his childhood friend, played by Jodie Foster, who was the "older woman" when he was a teen. She was a free spirit who lived life her own way, and she was someone he could always talk to when he needed a sympathetic ear. The rest of the story is told mostly in flashbacks to that earlier time in Harmon's life, and it's all about friendship and love and loyalty and such. Great stuff.

The ending is a little sentimental, or maybe a lot, but I wouldn't have it any other way. There's another of those great soundtracks with several songs that you'll recognize instantly if you grew up in the late '50s and early '60s. If you're a sucker for this kind of thing, as I am, and if you haven't see this movie, check it out.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'd rate it no more than average. I can remember exactly where and when we saw it, however. It was on our one and only visit (so far) to my brother out in Portland, it was the summer and 101 degrees, and Jackie insisted we had to go to a drive-in, which we no longer have in New York. This was the preview of the soon-to-be-open movie.

Jeff

pattinase (abbott) said...

I bet I saw it but I don't remember it at all.