Ulee's Gold

Cast and Crew Members

Cast

Peter Fonda

Patricia Richardson

Christine Dunford

Tom Wood

Jessica Biel

Vanessa Zima

Steven Flynn

Dewey Weber

J. Kenneth Campbell

Traber Burns

Crew Members

Gus Holzer Assistant Director

Victor Nunez Writer

Awards and Nominations

Audience Reviews

Read authentic reviews from real viewers about this movie.

• Wuchak

  Rating: 8/10

  "_**Low-key Southern Gothic about a struggling family living by the swamps of western Florida**_ An emotionally-detached Vietnam vet making a living as a beekeeper on the boggy panhandle of Florida (Peter Fonda) deals with grief, the meaninglessness of life, his son in prison (Tom Wood), a drug-addled daughter-in-law (Christine Dunford), a rebellious granddaughter (Jessica Biel), a new neighbor (Patricia Richardson) and a couple of thugs from Orlando (Steven Flynn and Dewey Weber). "Ulee’s Gold" (1997) is a slice-of-life Southern Gothic that could be mentioned in the same breath as “Ode to Billy Joe” (1976), “The Man in the Moon” (1991), “Sling Blade” (1996), “The Apostle” (1997) “Undertow” (2004), “Back Roads” (2018) and “The Devil All the Time” (2020). While it’s not as relentlessly downbeat & sordid as the last two, it certainly presents some of the most harrowing challenges of life in the modern world of which most viewers can relate. I definitely could. Speaking of which, I like the movie’s mundane realism and that it has the confidence to take its time to tell its story. While most critics praise the film, one armchair critic complained that the events are so humdrum every-day that it plays like a Lifetime or Hallmark flick. But this presupposes that theatrical movies HAVE to include constant unrealistic thrills and action, which obviously isn’t the case, particularly when it comes to a drama. Imagine how eye-rolling it would be if, say, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest” threw in an explosion or action sequence every ten minutes. The film runs 1 hour, 53 minutes, and was shot on the panhandle of Florida just east of Panama City in Apalachicola, Port St. Joe and Wewahitchka, with one sequence done in Orlando. GRADE: A-"

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