In Country

Infobox_Film
name = In Country


caption = Film poster for "In Country"
amg_id = 1:24485
imdb_id = 0097570
director = Norman Jewison
writer = Frank Pierson (screenplay)
Cynthia Cidre (screenplay)
Bobbie Ann Mason (novel)
starring = Bruce Willis
Emily Lloyd
producer = Norman Jewison
Richard A. Roth
music = James Horner
cinematography = Russell Boyd
editing = Antony Gibbs
Lou Lombardo
distributor = Warner Bros.
released = September 29, 1989
country = USA
language = English
runtime = 120 min.
gross = $3,532,000

"In Country" is a 1989 American drama film produced and directed by Norman Jewison, starring Bruce Willis and Emily Lloyd, a British actress who underwent training to speak with a Kentucky accent in the film. The screenplay by Frank Pierson and Cynthia Cidre was based on the novel by Bobbie Ann Mason. The original music score was composed by James Horner.

Willis earned a best supporting actor Golden Globe nomination for his role.

Plot summary

Recent high school graduate Samantha Hughes, 17, lives in fictional Hopewell, Kentucky with her uncle Emmett Smith, a quiet laid-back Vietnam War veteran who smokes marijuana about 14 times a day, as in the novel. He suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. Samantha's father, Dwayne, was killed in Vietnam at 21 after marrying and impregnating Samantha's mother, Irene. Samantha finds some old photographs, medals and letters of her father, and becomes obsessed with finding out more about him.

Irene, who has moved to Lexington, Kentucky with her second husband, wants Samantha to move in with them and go to beauty school. But Samantha would rather stay with Emmett and try to find out more about her father. Her mother is no help, as she tells Samantha, "Honey, I married him a month before he left for the war. He was 19. I hardly even remember him." Finally, Samantha, Emmett and her grandmother got to visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Finding her father's name in the memorial releases cathartic emotions in Samantha and her family.

Main cast

* Bruce Willis - Emmett Smith
* Emily Lloyd - Samantha Hughes
* Joan Allen - Irene
* Kevin Anderson - Lonnie
* John Terry - Tom
* Peggy Rea - Mamaw
* Judith Ivey - Anita
* Daniel Jenkins - Dwayne
* Steven Tobolowsky - Pete
* Jim Beaver - Earl Smith
* Richard Hamilton - Grandpaw
* Heidi Swedberg - Dawn
* Ken Jenkins - Jim Holly
* Jonathan Hogan - Larry
* Patricia Richardson - Cindy

Trivia

* Many scenes were shot in Mayfield, Kentucky. The walk-in doctor's office seen in the film is actually a dry cleaners which was renamed "Clothes Doctor" following its appearance in the film.
* The veterans in the dance sequence are all actual Vietnam veterans, and their real family members accompany them.
* Of the five major characters who are Vietnam veterans, only one, Earl, is played by an actual Vietnam veteran, Jim Beaver.
* Ken Jenkins, who plays Jim Holly (the organizer of the veteran's dance), is the father of Daniel Jenkins, who plays Samantha's father Dwayne in the Vietnam flashbacks. Their casting in the film was purely coincidental.
* Several scenes were shot in Paducah, Kentucky particularly the scene at their home. In a quick shot outside the small home, one can briefly observe a boxer and a black lab lying under a tree in the front yard. The boxer, Dempsey, belonged to the actual resident of the home, while the black lab was Dempsey's lifelong pal from down the street, Scotty.
* The commencement speaker was played by Don Young, the minister of a large Baptist church in Paducah, Kentucky. [ [http://www.heartlandworship.com/staff.asp] ] In an interview with "The Paducah Sun", he said the speech had been written for him but joked that it was so good, he might "borrow" parts of it in future sermons.

References

External links

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