Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, November 6, 1993                   TAG: 9311090062
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: C12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

'HOME' IS NOTHING FLASHY - IT'S SIMPLY ENTERTAINING

It's a simple story of real family values and growing up in hard times. Not the stuff of mindless escapism, but it is still an entertaining movie on its own terms. If it isn't likely to break box-office records, it will find an appreciative audience.

In 1962, Frances Lacey (Kathy Bates) decides to move her six kids, ages 5 to 15, out of Los Angeles and to raise them - away from the temptations and traps of the city. Her oldest son Shayne (Edward Furlong) hates the idea but since he's "the man of the family," he has to agree. Though she's not sure where they're going, she says she'll know it when she sees it and so they drive "sorta north and sorta east" until they wind up in a little Idaho mountain town.

That's where Frances finds a half-finished house - little more than a foundation and a frame, really - and announces that the Laceys are home. The place belongs to Mr. Munimura (Soon-Teck Oh) who agrees to let them finish it and live there. They pay the rent with work and try to settle into the community.

The core of writer/producer Patrick Duncan's autobiographical story is the family's attempt to make something from nothing. At times the film threatens to become "The Waltons Go West" but it mostly avoids that kind of sentimentality. Duncan's credits include the fine Vietnam drama "84 Charlie Mopic" and he brings that same tough attitude to this one.

As director, Bill has deliberately de-glamorized these characters. They're played as real, flawed people who get dirty and go to the bathroom and simply aren't that attractive, particularly when the thermometer's below freezing and a strong wind is blowing.

That's an unusual approach for a mainstream Hollywood film to take but it pays off. "A Home of Our Own" is different in the best sense of the word. It doesn't look like other movies. That in itself is really refreshing. But, from the studio's point of view, it's also risky. That's why Bill has been making the rounds promoting the film.

He said that initial reactions have been good. The movie seems to "touch buttons" and he suspects that the reason is a sort of anti-nostalgia. "It could be that the baby-boomer audience remembers those times better than many suspect." If everyone of that generation didn't go through the degree of poverty depicted in the film, a lot of them can recall lean times when they didn't have nearly as many material possessions as they have now.

As Bill puts it, "Nobody looks back and says, `My childhood was great.' " As "A Home of Our Own" shows though, tough unpleasant times can bring people together and give them a stronger appreciation of the real worth of things and of themselves. That's a story that always bears telling and retelling.

\ A Home of Our Own: *** A Gramercy release playing at the Tanglewood Mall Theatre. 103 min. Rated PG for domestic violence, strong language.