Cross Creek Movie Review

At once touching and weird, this feel-good version of Deliverance has Mary Steenburgen dropping everything to move to a tiny backwater bayou civilization in Florida called Cross Creek, where she intends to write fiction when she isn't busy helping the locals get their lives together. Nominated for four Oscars (it won none), this meandering trip into the world of moonshine and 'gator hunting features a stellar performance by Rip Torn which just about keeps the saccharine level at bay. (It is also, incidentally, the true-ish story of the woman who wrote the book The Yearling.)