ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, April 13, 1996 TAG: 9604160003
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: REVIEW
SOURCE: KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
SHOWTIME PREMIERES ``Homecoming,'' the first novel in Cynthia Voight's Tillerman family series.
A mother wakes her four children in the middle of the night and packs them into the family car. She drives them from Province-town, Mass., to Peewaukett, Conn., stops in the parking lot of a shopping mall and leaves them waiting in the car.
She never returns.
That's the premise of Showtime's ``Homecoming,'' adapted by writer-director Mark Jean from the first novel in Cynthia Voight's Tillerman family series. The film from Hallmark Entertainment (airing Sunday night at 8) is so good others in the series ought to be filmed, too.
The Tillerman kids are used to doing things according to a family rule: Oldest child on the scene is immediately responsible for the well-being of the others. That means Dicey (Kimberlee Peterson), a resourceful preteen, is the one they look to when day turns into night as they huddle together in the car.
``Mama loves us,'' Dicey tells them. ``That's all I know.''
But when it's clear Mama isn't coming back and the mall security guys call the police in to check on what they think is an abandoned vehicle, Dicey realizes it's time to hit the road. Where can they go with just a few bucks and a paper sack full of sandwiches?
So the children hit the road. Dicey is a calm, determined girl. She knows they have an aunt living near Bridgeport, so the best thing is to start walking in that direction and hope maybe their mama will be waiting for them there.
It's not an easy journey. James (Trever O'Brien), the oldest boy, isn't happy being told what to do. He's a bright, intelligent lad, but he's too young to lead. Maybeth (Hanna Hall) is shy, and the trauma of the long hike causes her to withdraw so far into herself that most people assume she's retarded. Little Sammy (William Greenblatt) is defiant and wants to do things his way, but, like the rest, he usually listens to Dicey when all the shouting's done.
Why not simply let the police find them? Dicey knows what would happen: They'd break the family up and send them all to foster homes while a search is mounted for their mom. She can't take the risk. What if they can't find her?
The road leads them to a spinster cousin, Eunice (Bonnie Bedelia), who just can't imagine what to do with a brood of school-age Tillermans, and finally to a grandmother they've never seen, the fierce, intimidating Abigail, played with gusto by Anne Bancroft.
She's a leathery old shoe of a widow who lives by the water in Maryland, travels by boat instead of car, won't have a telephone in her house and is widely believed by the townspeople to be tetched in the head.
As you might expect, this is where the kids settle to wait for their mom, not realizing Granny and Mama are so severely estranged that Granny's farm is the last place in the universe their mama would turn up. Worse yet, Abigail considers kids the plague of the Earth and treats them all like field mice in her vegetable bin.
Still, the resolute Dicey gives the younger kids this sound advice: Try to be as ingratiating as possible while stalling for time and maybe Abigail will start to like them.
It's a sad scenario - four very likable kids, working their butts off for a cranky old woman who's been so isolated for so long that kids stir up memories of an abusive marriage. Her own children are scattered to the winds, leaving nothing but an ache in her heart.
Bancroft is marvelous as this awesome woman, especially once her heart starts to warm in the sunshine of their youth. Bedelia's Eunice is so radically far from her usual contemporary characters that you will not believe it's actually she playing that uptight woman with the thin lips and prissy expression.
But the heart of ``Homecoming'' is the performance by young Kimberlee Peterson, who so beautifully captures the essence of a girl whose childhood has been compromised by adult responsibilities and emotions she isn't yet prepared to understand.
``Homecoming'' is the best yet of the Sunday night Showtime family movies and will stand tall among the best made-for-TV films of the current season.
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Hanna Hall (from left), Kimberlee Peterson, Anneby CNBBancroft, William Greenblatt and Trever O'Brien star in
``Homecoming,'' airing Sunday night at 8 on Showtime.