Ulee’s Gold arrived in theatres 26 years ago today, June 13, 1997, and to celebrate writer/director Victor Nunez’s smalltown USA drama – about an ordinary beekeeper (Peter Fonda) forced to cope with a troubling family crisis – “Ulee’s Gold” is AHFW’s Movie of the Week.
Fonda stars as Ulee, a widower who rather keep to himself in his modest Florida home and wrestle with his demons while caring for his bees in their apiaries. Instead, his grown son (Tom Wood) sits in prison and his wife (Christine Dunford) left their two girls. Now, Ulee finds himself raising a teenager (Jessica Biel) and a preteen (Vanessa Zima) without a defined end, but when trouble arises from his son’s nefarious dealings, our reluctant lead needs to find the fortitude to stand up for his family and himself.
Nunez’s script doesn’t reveal the sources of Ulee’s pain straightaway but does so in small delicate moments throughout the film’s deliberately casual 115-minute pace.
Meanwhile, Fonda delivers a brave, introspective performance as Ulee, a man burying in his pain in his work, but life suddenly compels him to leave his own secluded headspace and join the universe again. Patricia Richardson gives a welcomed supporting hand, and Fonda rightfully earned a Best Actor Oscar nomination.
⭐⭐⭐ 1/2 out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Directed and written by: Victor Nunez
Starring: Peter Fonda, Patricia Richardson, Jessica Biel, Tom Wood, Vanessa Zima, and Christine Dunford
Runtime: 115 minutes
Rated: R
Image credits: Orion Pictures
