Sarah, Plain and Tall
Sarah, Plain and Tall
G | 03 February 1991 (USA)
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Kansas, 1910. Widowed farmer Jacob Witting finds that taking care of both his farm and two children, Anna and Caleb, is too difficult to handle alone. John takes out an ad in a newspaper for a mail-order bride, to which the "plain and tall" Sarah Wheaton answers, soon traveling from Maine to Kansas to become John's wife. Despite the love that grows between Sarah and the family, Sarah finds herself homesick, and she must ultimately choose whether or not to stay.

Reviews
IslandGuru

Who payed the critics

LouHomey

From my favorite movies..

SincereFinest

disgusting, overrated, pointless

Connianatu

How wonderful it is to see this fine actress carry a film and carry it so beautifully.

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robslady

This seems to be a minority opinion, but I actually liked the book "Sarah, Plain and Tall" much better than the movie. The book is spare, poetic and lovely. The romance of Jacob and Sarah is in the background, but Anna and Caleb's hopes to have a new mother are almost palpable. The lack of details allows rich play for the imagination, and Patricia MacLachlan is an absolute master at evoking the sights, the sounds, the very texture of the world in which her characters live. When Jacob puts his arm around Sarah for the first time in the book, it is a delightful surprise and it means so much because we are seeing it through the eyes of the children who so very much want Sarah to stay. The movie, by filling in all the gaps, and filling it with conversations which to me, felt too modern for the times, lost a lot of the magic of the story. Glenn Close did a wonderful job of embodying Sarah, but she was a little too adept in her ability to analyze Jacob's lingering grief and anger -- in those days they didn't do as much emotional analysis as we do now, and anyway, how would a spinster who lived with three elderly aunts know about a widower's inability to let go of grief? I think perhaps if I hadn't read the book first and loved it so deeply, I may have liked the movie more than I did. The book was a perfect example of the old writing adage, "show, don't tell," but ironically, the movie did way too much telling and not enough showing.

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nikinemeth

Oh my God is such a wonderful film. I watched it on the channel Hallmark, and i tought that it will be boring, but i started to watch it, because there was Chris Walken (i heard he like Chris better like Christopher), and he is an amazing actor, and strangle sexy. The 2 children's are so nice and lovely, i think everybody wants such kind oh great kids:) Glenn Close is so nice ang beautiful in this film, and her role is also very good. A woman who tried to change old habits and and deep feelings. And there's a lovely ending!! Oh, and Mr. Walken is also great(like almost always). He plays perfectly the man who cant forget his wife and cant find the way to go on with 2 children's who lost their mothers but want live a normal life!! Great film i have seen it 5 times and i still love it!! 10/10

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shark-43

I had always heard good things about this film but never got around to seeing it. My 8 year old daughter loves books on the prairie life and we saw the video at the library so we watched it and we were both so moved, so impressed. A lovely film, wonderfully acted - Walken is a nice surprise - after a long, Hollywood career playing weirdos and sickos - he gives a fully realized, delicate, heartbreaking performance as a widower Kansas farmer. The children stay away from cliched, hammy acting and the whole thing is touching and sweet.

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Milhaud

Nice little movie about life in the Prairie and about how a young widower can make a new life, and how his two children can relate to a new women coming to their home to "replace" their mother. No clichés (there could have been scores of them), sensitive story, good casting. Never before that movie had I sensed how Kansas and Maine, two states in the same country, can be so far apart, geographically and culturally.

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