The Straight Story is a cozy, cathartic, and reflective flick about family’s importance, letting go of the past, forgiveness, and the kindness of ordinary people. Based on the actual lawn mower travels of Alvin Straight (Richard Farnsworth), Straight follows the titular age-tattered but determined farmer as he travels from Iowa country to Wisconsin in search of his estranged brother, Lyle (Harry Dean Stanton). After a heated debate with his intellectually disabled daughter Rose (Sissy Spacek) and a sorrowful health screening from his doctor, Alvin abandons his current surroundings to make amends with Lyle—even if his lack of a driver’s license restricts him to garden machinery for transportation. Along the way, he meets many enticing characters who either aid in his travels and choices or need life-related conversations themselves. Reliant on the kindness of others and his aged abilities, Alvin traverses the hills, highways, and backwaters of north-midwestern America—finding plenty more than unchanging roads to fill the time.

Family is both complicated and inescapable. People are imperfect, and those they’re stuck with through adoption, blood, or marriage don’t always share the same ideals or reactions to life’s trials. Alvin demonstrates that his venture to Lyle comes ten years after that kind of relationship-altering clash, partially thanks to Alvin’s traumatic military experience. “Anger [from war], vanity, you mix that together with liquor, you’ve got two brothers that haven’t spoken in ten years,” a saddened Alvin admits to one of the many strangers. His remorse for their lost time comes through vividly, and the longevity of his trek—six weeks—reflects the hard work it takes to rekindle lost relationships. Throw that in with director David Lynch’s fluid pacing, dream-like transitions, and captivating imagery, and a collection of finely tuned, slow-moving moments of tragic nostalgia or heartening kindness emerge.

Though the core interactions and ideas stand tall, the cast is also supremely enmeshed in their roles. Farnsworth gives Alvin a wise, stubborn, and perceptive edge. With each new passerby, Alvin absorbs the knowledge of their person with a subtle coyness, either offering them a share of his dinner out of a desire to talk more or keeping his distance to enlighten them with his old man’s knowings—and Farnsworth knows precisely the beyond-seeing magnetism necessary. Spacek, as Rose, contrasts Alvin’s laid-back personality with a high-strung, anxious presence that’s made all the more depressing as more is revealed about her in Straight’s back half. The rest of the cast, whether present for a few minutes or longer, spices the film with richly detailed side characters that primarily help Alvin in both his physical and mental journeys. Overall, the film may occasionally feel too slow or cinematographically unfocused, but The Straight Story is mainly a swift, homey venture through the hills and dips of Midwest USA grounded by a solid core of togetherness and regret.

Screens in 35 mm Monday, 9/16, 7:00 pm @ Coolidge Corner Theatre
Part of the ongoing repertory series: Big Screen Classics