Regular Price $14.98

Starring: Scott Glenn,  Arija Bareikis,  Robert Sean Leonard,  Melinda Dillon,  Logan Lerman, 
Directed By: Alfonso Arau, 
Rated: Unrated
Release Date: 2003-04-27
Studio: Lions Gate
Format: Closed-captioned,  Color,  DVD-Video,  Full Screen,  NTSC, 

Editorial Reviews and DVD Information about A Painted House

Product Description
Ten year-old Luke comes of age when two groups of migrant workers come to Arkansas to work his family's farm.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: UN
Release Date: 19-AUG-2005
Media Type: DVD

Amazon.com
Even by the high standards of the Hallmark Hall of Fame, A Painted House is well above average. John Grisham's well-received "lawyer-free" novel was respectfully adapted by Patrick Sheane Duncan (Mr. Holland's Opus), and director Alfonso Arau (Like Water for Chocolate, A Walk in the Clouds) brings just the right touch of toughness and delicate nostalgia to Grisham's semi-autobiographical remembrance of boyhood in rural Arkansas, circa 1952. Grisham's alter ego is 10-year-old Luke Chandler (well played by Logan Lerman), and when tempers flare into violence between the Mexican migrant workers and itinerant "hill people" hired to harvest cotton on his grandfather's farm, Luke--who has witnessed a murder--must decide whether to expose the killer or keep the crime a secret. Filled with warm grace notes and a perfect cast including leather-faced Scott Glenn and Melinda Dillon (as Luke's grandparents), A Painted House juggles multiple crises (including devastating rainstorms) with strong family values, capturing the humor and hardship of farming life at a crossroads of fading tradition and inevitable change. Combining elements of To Kill a Mockingbird and Places in the Heart, this is a purebred Hallmark production in every respect, earning a badge of pride for everyone involved in its making. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews for A Painted House

The Beginning
When I first saw this on TV I really like it, probably because it is a coming of age story. Coming of age stories are good because they make you aware of how you came to be a certain way as an adult.
A Painted House I felt when I saw it allows you to see how different life can be for others. My life growing up was nothing like those in this film and actually I couldn't really identify with any of the characters.
Everyone knows that opposites attract and that is the only reason I can explain for liking this movie.
Also the story is told from the youngest boy's point of view and that added something special to the narrative structure because the storyteller is looking back on his childhood.
That's another reason I enjoyed it, I love movies about writers, even though A Painted House had nothing to do with writing in its story; I still enjoyed that element that the boy would grow up to be a writer. Most people are unaware of the writer's creative process and just seeing this kid picking cotton and watching fights and going to five-cent matinees and knowing he grows up to be a writer made me watch a little more careful to see how that creative process began.A Painted House

family movie
It keeps you thinking. It has a great theme of family and closeness. The story of one boy and his families hardships living by the river.A Painted House

Pretty good for a book adaptation
I was curious about this film because I had recently read - and enjoyed - the book by John Grisham. And well, yes, the book IS better, but who would expecte anything else? The movie version still is very good indeed, the acting was good. Scott Glenn played the grandfather very convincingly and Logan Lerman gave a promising performance as young Luke Chandler. These two worked well together and they are the main characters. Although some slight story adaptations were made, the film still stays true to the book (John Grisham himself was involved in the project). There should have been a little more focus on the character of Cowboy, since his part in the story got bigger towards the end and only little background about the developing conflict between him and Hank Spruill (a very good performance by Pablo Schreiber as the angry young man) was really given - whereas in the book the conflict builds gradually. The final - and fatal - fight between the two also differs from the book version, but the way it starts here was probably necessary to make it work (see my comment about the lack of development). Apart from a few minor upsets, this is a fine and entertaining film.A Painted House

A Painted House (DVD) based on novel by John Grisham
An excellent movie breathing life into the story and characters as depicted in John Grisham's story.
I loved the book and this film really does it justice. A must have for any John Grisham fans.A Painted House

Read it instead.
If you see it you'll never want to read it, a great book to read. The movie didn't carry the half of it.A Painted House