By Richard Winters
My Rating: 3 out of 10
4-Word Review: Living off the land.
Skip (Robert Logan) is a married father of two who finds his job as a construction worker a thankless routine. The smog of Los Angeles, which is where he and his family reside, is affecting his daughter Jenny (Hollye Holmes) who’s having breathing issues and nothing her doctor has prescribed is helping. He’s also tired of the traffic, which is why one day he tells his wife Pat (Susan Damante-Shaw) that he wants to get out of the city and move to the countryside. After some brief thought she agrees. The family then takes residence in an isolated Colorado cabin that’s rundown and filled with rodents. They’re able though to build a new cabin and move in but then must learn to fight the elements including mountain lions, wolves, and even grizzly bears.
Loosely based on the true-life story of a family that moved from Los Angeles to the remote regions of the Pacific Northwest that was written about in a 1974 New York Times article the film takes too much of a glossy approach to what should’ve been a deeper, more complex drama. The family makes their decision to move too quickly, literally on a ride home while in their pick-up. No scenes showing them having to say goodbye to their friends, selling off all of their belongings, or how they come about choosing the piece of open land that they eventually settle on. I felt for satisfactory emotional impact; to be able to fully appreciate the changes this family was going through those scenes should’ve been shown.
There’s also too much agreement amongst them. They’re all cool with leaving the city and don’t show even a fleeting second thought about it. As a kid that would mean giving up all their friends and playmates, TV-shows, and music and all the other conveniences of suburban living that I’m just don’t believe most children would roll with like here. It would’ve been much more of an interesting story had at least one of the kids been opposed to the move or put up a big fuss only to then maybe soften to the idea once they got out there. It could be done in reverse too with a child really excited to only to change their mind once they came face-to-face with the harsh reality of being in a wilderness long term. Going on a vacation to the woods is one thing but permanently leaving the only life you know to relocate to the middle of nowhere would certainly bring I would argue a lot of tears and adjustment and yet absolutely none of that occurs here making it vapid and lacking any type of character arch.
What had me even more flabbergasted was that these kids get attacked by wolves and even bears and still don’t want to go back to the city. Yes, there would be smog, but I might be willing to begrudgingly accept that if it meant no more wild animal attacks. I was a kid once too, growing up in that time period, and if I got uprooted like that and went through all the hardships they did, I’d be screaming to go back home making the kids here seem unrelatable. The mother does to some extent put up a meek argument about wanting to go back, but it’s done in a light and gentle manner, and she immediately backs down when the others don’t agree, which makes for non-compelling interactions.
The scenery is pleasant, filmed at the state park near Gunnison, Colorado, but it becomes like a nature propaganda movie where the only accepted opinion is that living in the country is great, even with the challenges, and no other point-of-view is allowed. Having a debate about the pros and cons of both would’ve added more subtext and made it less one-dimensional. The sappy songs done over the action is nothing but a time filler and proves how overall threadbare it is.
Sure there are a few intense moments including the climactic bear attack with the mother and children trapped in a cabin trying valiantly to fight him off, but whole thing works in a loop where every 10-minutes or so there’s some sort of confrontation with a wild animal, the family then considers giving up on the whole wilderness thing, only to agree to stay and then it starts all over again. Eventually by the third act it becomes quite uncompelling.
My Rating: 3 out of 10
Released: December 19, 1975
Runtime: 1 Hour 39 Minutes
Rated G
Director: Steward Raffill
Studio: Pacific International Enterprises
Available: DVD, Amazon Video, Tubi, Freevee, Plex, Roku, YouTube
Scopophilia 