Who payed the critics

Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

If you grew up Southern you always have a thing about Hollywood actors trying to put on a Southern accent. I cringe when I hear Paul Newman, his wife Joan Woodward or Elizabeth Taylor trying to be "Southern." I liked "Rambling Rose" because, for once, the actors nailed it. Only to be expected, I guess, since Diane Ladd is from Mississippi and Laura Dern is her daughter. (So how to explain Robert Duvall, who grew up in San Diego? Well, he's just one helluva an actor.) Aside from the accents, the acting was outstanding.Also I thought the soft summery lighting was perfect, unlike some period movies that seem done in comic book colors. I wonder where the location scenes were shot--anybody know?The story itself wasn't great, but was above average, IMHO.

Since I started looking at Laura Dern movies and heard so much about this one, rental stores didn't have it. I finally found on the internet where I could buy it for about $10, I got it along with one of my favorites, "Afterburn". The movie, a flashback to the 1930s, made a slow start but picked up later. It's a story that, for that period of time, has probably been played out thousands of times in real life all over the country. A young girl without a family to raise her in those times is a real tragedy, and Rose was doing the best she could..very lucky to even get the job and the home. I thought that Rose getting into bed with Buddy and what happened then was totally unnecessary to help the movie. Thats why I went down to a five. The ending was quite depressing after grown-up Buddy came back home and found out she had died. We didn't know anything about her for 25 years.

Robert Duvall was splendid in this movie. I do not want to ruin it for people watching, so I can not tell you much but his acting was great as well as Laura Dern. What a dynamic and thought provocative movie with so many interesting twists that are unexpected. The wife was really good too. The morals of it, the conflicts, the family. This movie had it all, love, conflict, compassion, passion and all great acting too! I would imagine if this movie is a book I should read it actually. The nuances were subtle and well done, it did address some touchy topics as well. The young boy actor really was well cast too. I guess all in all, the casting was super, the dialog was well done and the way they captured the south was excellent as well.

I'm a sucker for nostalgic memoirs of childhood, but this one has little to recommend it. Lukas Haas should win a special award for "work ethic": he's hardly skipped a year for movies appearing since he was 7, and IMDb lists him with SIX in various stages of pre-production at this writing. In the present one, he's 15 playing Buddy, a Depression-era 13-y/o whose family takes in Rose, a vivacious and sexually rather uninhibited young woman, especially for that time. She "puts the move" on the father while Buddy and his sister watch, but dad is stalwart and declines. Buddy, who has no such moral qualms, does wind up with her in his bed one time, and manages to pet her to orgasm, but she returns no favors to him, though she apparently doesn't mind "doing it" with most any young man who comes along. The summer passes, or the year, or whatever it was, and everybody moves on with their lives. So what?