Cross Creek

The writer Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings leaves her life and her marriage in New York and buys an orange grove in Florida. The aim is to write a novel; the work is pruning trees, getting along with neighbours and finding a place inside a community at the edge of the swamp. The film is not interested in writing. It is interested in where material comes from: Rawlings only finds her voice after she knows the people around her, and the book she makes out of them brings her fame. Its question is how far you have the right to write somebody's life. The form is calm and seasonal: work in the grove, rain, harvest, visits. Few dramatic peaks, a great deal of everyday detail. Martin Ritt directed. He was one of the steadiest makers of socially minded American drama, and class and race sit at the centre here too. Mary Steenburgen plays Rawlings, with Rip Torn and Alfre Woodard in support; both were nominated for Oscars. Who it is for: viewers who like writers' biographies and slow, place-driven American films. Who it is not for: anyone waiting for events. The film moves with almost no conflict and some of its secondary characters are underdeveloped.