ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, April 20, 1997 TAG: 9704180038
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: tom shales
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: TOM SHALES
``The Hallmark Hall of Fame'' ends its season with more of a whimper than a bang, but it's kind of a sweet whimper, a winsome whimper. Besides, there are more than enough bangs on television as it is.
``Rose Hill,'' on WDBJ (Channel 7) tonight at 9, is an odd, meandering Western set in the late 1800s and covering the first 20 years of a young woman's life. When we first meet her, in the New York of 1866, she's a 4-month-old baby in the care of a serving girl. Four young scalawags, fleeing the police, race away in a borrowed wagon, unaware that the baby is in the back of it.
The boys, all orphans, don't know where to return the baby so, rather incredibly, they keep it, naming it Mary Rose. Who's Rose Hill? That's a place, not a person. Anyway, when the kids board a train and take the tot with them (feeding it goat's milk), it looks like the movie is going to be ``Four Boys and a Baby.'' But no.
First they go to Abilene, Kansas, as muddy a town as was ever seen in a Western. Then they head off to Texas, years pass, and soon Mary Rose is a little girl living with her surrogate brothers on a ranch. But she doesn't stay there and neither do they, moving on again and ending up in Montana, where we rejoin Mary Rose at the age of 19.
``It's Rose Hill, Mary,'' one of the boys tells her on beholding their new stomping ground. ``We're home.''
The boys are actually young men now. One of them is African American. He's the oldest and smartest of the group, the one who urged the others to go West in the first place because ``out West, a man ain't looked down on for his color.'' The men are extremely protective of Mary Rose and guard her virginity (though the word is not mentioned) as if it were the Hope Diamond, scaring off suitors and making Mary cranky.
More than once as the story ambles along and then makes a sudden sharp turn, a viewer is bound to wonder where it is all heading. Written by Earl Wallace from a novel called ``For the Roses'' by Julie Garwood, the film seems eventful for a while and then bogs down once the little band reaches its promised land.
What they become along the way is a family and, if the film is about anything, it's about the enduring importance of family in American, and human, life. The young men bond like brothers and protect Mary as if she really were their sister.
Meanwhile, we are left to wonder who Mary's real parents are and whether she will ever see them again.
Christopher Cain directed the film; yes, he's the father of Dean Cain, handsome Superman of ABC's ``Lois & Clark.'' Unfortunately, while Cain's direction is solid and assured, it's also pretty chilly. Maybe even icy. The characters don't express much passion, no matter how many adventures they go through. They seem almost oblivious.
You begin to think maybe there's a better story going on in the next town, or at least one being told with more emotional oomph.
Still, like most ``Hallmark Hall of Fames,'' this is a handsome and classy production, absolutely unobjectionable as family entertainment, and full of nice scenery and attractive performers. Mary as a 19-year-old is played by Jennifer Garner, who does a terrific job. Jeffrey D. Sams is authoritative and likable as Adam, the oldest brother, with the others played by Zak Orth, Justin Chambers and Tristan Tait.
David Newsom and Casey Siemaszko play John Stringer and Fergus Carroll, two of Mary's would-be suitors. A few ornery varmints mosey into town but tend to mosey right out again. There's a bit of gunfire here and there, but no explicit violence.
For some viewers, the niceness of it all will be just too underwhelming. Others, noting one character's observation that ``a little happiness is hard enough to come by in this world,'' will find ``Rose Hill'' to be a perfect little bit of happiness itself, especially for a Sunday night in spring.
LENGTH: Medium: 75 linesby CNB