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Essay on death“Echoes of a Summer”; (PG), with Jodie Foster, Bichard Harris, Lois Nettleton and! Brad Savage, directed by Don Taylor, at the El Camino and jdetrocenter theaters.1 ? By MIKE PETRYNI? We’ve seen it before. From “Love Story” to “Death •Be Not Proud” to “Brian’s Song” to “Love and Pain •and the Whole Damn Thing,” we have seen people • dying before their time. We’ve seen Hollywood.1 try towring every last tear out of us with this same theme. Now, “Echoes of a Summer” isabout the same thing. This is the dying summer of 'll-year-old Dierdre Striden (Jodie Foster), a dying ^summer that wrenches her parent’s marriage apart ' and back together again, a dying summer that; touches ;.!a nine-year-old friend to the quick.; Much of it is typical. The father (Richard Harris); -tries to ease his daughter’s dying by constructing i'myriad fantasies around her, fantasies' of faraway places and exotic happenings. Her doting mother s(Lois Nettleton) won’t admit to coming death and ^constantly seeks out new doctors, an endless stream ;;cf specialists to wage war on mortality.*1 We’ve seen it all before, and some of it has been ^genuinely touching like the much overlooked “Love ;-and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing.” We have seen »4t all before but...If Robert L. Joseph’s intelligent script for “Echoes n';of a Summer” shows just one thing, it show that t; death, at whatever age, is a tireless theme when done ^intelligently. Intelligence is the essance of this, new j ;movie directed by Don. Taylor.“Echoes of a Summer,” despite its soppy title, ^doesn’t go for tears and misery. Instead, it’s tough, t’hard edged, a probing look at’ the act of living out I one last summer for a little girl who has a good deal ' Of dignity and intelligent resignation.5 “You’re a tough kid,” one specialist (William Win-f.dom) tells Dierdre when she^ rails at him for flying I 'out uselessly to examine her.»•; “You have to be in this dying business,” the 11-year-vold snaps back.“It’s a big business,” Windom says.That’s the way it goes in “Echoes of a Summer.” • Whenever the adults become mournful and deluded, .'Dierdre or her nine-year-old friend, Philip (Brad I'jSjfvage), is right there to set them straight. “I’ve the bumest ticker this side of the cemetery,” she £s|ys flatly.f^jwhiie Taylor’s direction looks at times distraetingly rlike a television' show,, and while most of the acting fjf just okay, “Echoes oi a Summer” still works be-i.Suse Miss Foster has a keen acting edge (she’s be-| jepme, the young actress many of us hoped Tatum »|$Neal would be) and because Joseph recognizes that 3ntelligence can have a sharper, more piercing, point a teardrop. ■
Newspaper Details
Phoenix Arizona Republic
Phoenix, Arizona, US
Sat, May 22, 1976
Page 120
Full Page
Clipped by
Rotten T.
USA 23 Sep 2020
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