Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 25, 1995 TAG: 9503290018
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RON MILLER KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Neil Patrick Harris - but also for the network itself.
Already the most-watched cable network, USA now proves that its long run of cheap ``women in jeopardy'' thriller movies is about to give way to a series of major ``event movies'' that will make USA a contender for all of TV's most prestigious awards.
``The diversification of our movie portfolio is really important to us,'' says Kay Koplovitz, founder and CEO of USA. ``I think people are really going to be surprised at the type of movie it is. It's every bit the match of any Hallmark Hall of Fame movie.''
For once, a network boss isn't just whistling Dixie with her fingers crossed behind her back. ``My Antonia'' is all Koplovitz promises it will be - a knockout in every department and clearly one of the 10 best made-for-TV movies of the 1994-95 TV season.
Based on the Willa Cather novel, ``My Antonia'' tells the story of 14-year-old Jim Burden (Harris), who is orphaned when a smallpox epidemic sweeps through Virginia in the late 1800s and kills both his parents. Still in shock, he arrives on the remote Nebraska farm of his grandparents (Jason Robards, Eva Marie Saint), where he will spend the rest of his youth.
One day Jim accompanies Grandmother Burden on a welcoming visit to the humble farm of the Shimerdas, a newly arrived immigrant family from Bohemia (later a part of Czechoslovakia). The Shimerdas are a once-proud family, now reduced to sub-poverty level as they struggle to learn a new language and a new livelihood in a harsh new environment.
Almost immediately, Jim is attracted to the Shimerdas' teen-age daughter, Antonia (Elina Lowensohn), a lively, intelligent and imaginative girl whose father asks Jim to help them learn English. On the lonely and vast Nebraska prairie, there are few opportunities to meet many other young people, so Jim and Antonia soon become not only neighbors, but best pals.
``In my country, life is a circle,'' she tells him. ``Each person you love is part of your circle.''
But when Jim's attentions to Antonia begin to resemble infatuation, Grandfather Burden starts putting up barriers to stop his promising grandson from being drawn into the circle of a family he sees destined to lose its struggle for survival on the land.
In Cather's story, one of these star-crossed young people must be sacrificed for the other. Will it be the endlessly resourceful Antonia, stepping aside to watch the love of her life go on to a better life with her beautiful Swedish neighbor, Lena (Anne Tremko), or the fiercely loyal Jim, refusing his destiny to stand by the woman he loves? Wondering about that will keep you riveted to the very end.
Though it's set in another time and place, ``My Antonia'' is as relevant today as it ever was. With America now experiencing new waves of immigration from Eastern Europe, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America, the same set of circumstances surely is being duplicated in thousands of households: Youngsters of radically different cultures meet in school, fall in love and come up against walls of opposition within their own families.
Grandfather Burden is not a bigot who's opposed to the Shimerdas per se, but rather a stubbornly pragmatic man and a former teacher, who knows his grandson has great potential if he can stick to his studies long enough to acquire a first-rate education. He also suspects that Antonia's ties to her struggling family will drag Jim off course and ultimately bind him to a life that someday will leave him unfulfilled and unhappy.
Yet is it possible that a man and a woman can be perfect soul mates, whose destiny truly is each other? That's the nagging question of ``My Antonia,'' a love story of great complexity and infinite texture.
Executive Producer David Rintels, composer David Shire and director Joseph Sargent, four times an Emmy winner, are about as good as you can get for television. They filmed ``My Antonia'' in the heart of Cather country - the re-created prairie town of Grand Island, Neb. - and the teleplay by Victoria Riskin is impeccably faithful to the spirit of Cather's story. Thirty descendants of Anna Sadilek Pavelka, Cather's lifelong friend and the real-life inspiration for Antonia Shimerda, perform as extras in the film, including Pavelka's daughter, Antoinette Kort.
Robards and Saint - playing husband and wife for the third time in a movie - deliver flawless performances as Jim's caring grandparents, each choosing different ways to show their love for him. They form an embracing frame for the two central performances - the incandescent Lowensohn from ``Schindler's List'' as the irresistible Antonia and ``Doogie Howser'' graduate Harris, doing his most mature work to date as the reflective but deeply caring youth who comes of age.
Sargent's film is loaded with unforgettable moments: The carefree Antonia joyfully gushing ``Jeemy - I love America!'' while riding double with Jim on horseback; her tragic father (Jan Triska) mournfully playing his violin in a snowstorm; her mentally handicapped brother running in circles, crying ``Papa, papa!,'' after his father's death, and so many more.
Ultimately, though, the grandeur of ``My Antonia'' is in the heart-tugging romantic conflict at its core.
When Antonia tells Jim, ``Ain't it wonderful, Jimmy, how much people can mean to each other?'' she's expressing an eternal theme that illuminates this superb TV movie.
by CNB