Double Feature
Local Hero
Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero stars Burt Lancaster as Texas oil baron Felix Happer, who sends employee MacIntyre (Peter Riegert) as an emissary to a Scottish fishing village to negotiate for the rights to the town’s oil reserves. Surprisingly, the Scots are more than anxious to sell, and MacIntyre’s trip becomes progressively stranger as time wears on. (Warner Bros)
- Director
- Bill Forsyth
- Writer
- Bill Forsyth
- Starring
- Burt Lancaster, Peter Riegert, Fulton Mackay, Denis Lawson
- Year
- 1983
- Rated
- PG
- Country
- UK
- Format
- 35mm
- Running Time
- 111 minutes
Housekeeping
Writer/director Bill Forsyth (Comfort and Joy, Being Human) brings to life this tale, set in the 1950s and based on a novel by Marilynne Robinson, which is neither a sentimental nor simple exploration of familial and emotional bonds. Ruth (Sara Walker) and Lucille (Andrea Burchill) are two young sisters who are abandoned by their mother and raised by a succession of aged relatives, until their unconventional aunt Sylvie (Christine Lahti, Running on Empty) arrives like a breath of fresh air. Sylvie has been living on the road for many years, and her life is detached from the norms of the community; she returns home to bittersweet memories and the town’s harsh scrutiny. The girls are thrilled to have a charming young role model and Sylvie’s new responsibilities offer her a chance for real love, sharing a home, and a sense of family – all things she has not felt for a long time. Eventually, as Ruth and Lucille’s perceptions of Sylvie change, the two girls develop vastly different ways of relating to this eccentric, original woman. (Sony)
- Director
- Bill Forsyth
- Writer
- Screenplay by Bill Forsyth based on the novel by Marilynne Robinson
- Starring
- Christine Lahti
- Year
- 1987
- Rated
- PG
- Country
- USA
- Format
- 35mm
- Running Time
- 116 minutes