This is a film mainly about adults and adult issues made for an adult audience.  It shows problems, even death and grief.  It shows people working towards forgiveness and healing.  It shows ordinary people and people at the margins of life.

The star is Robert Redford, looking more than a bit gnarled, lined and a chin full of stubble.  After all, he is almost 70.  He owns a farm but has had to let his cows go.  His son has been killed in a car crash and he has never got over it.  He is completely bitter towards his daughter-in-law who was driving at the time of the accident.  In the meantime, he cares for a friend who worked for him and who has been in pain for some time after being mauled by a bear.

The bear becomes the film’s symbol for Redford’s character.  The bear wanders the town while Redford wants to shoot it.  But, it is captured and is exhibited in an animal park.  The victim of its mauling wants it fed and finally freed after looking it in the eye with courage.

Accidents are also an important theme.  Each of the characters has been involved in accidents and each has to learn that that is the meaning of accident: no one’s fault, even if death follows.

The farm is in Wyoming and its beautiful scenery (Brokeback Mountain territory and there are allusions to the friendship between the two old men).  But this is a straight and generally straightforward story.  Redford’s character has been a drunk and is bitter.  He has been devoted to Morgan Freeman as the victim of the bear (which the drunk Redford did not have the strength to move).  He suddenly finds that his alienated daughter-in-law (Jennifer Lopez in quite a low-key performance) arrives with a grand-daughter he never knew about.  The bonding of child and grandparent can work wonders – and does.

The film was directed by Lasse Halstrom who likes this kind of humane story in out-of-the-way places: What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Cider House Rules, Chocolat, The Shipping News.

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