Themes: Haunted By the Past, Assumed Identities, First Love
Main Cast: Christine Lahti, River Phoenix, Judd Hirsch, Martha Plimpton, Jonas Abry
Release Year: 1988
Country: US
Run Time: 116 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG13
Plot
In this family drama from director Sidney Lumet, Judd Hirsch and Christine Lahti play Arthur and Annie Pope, a pair of '60s radicals who have eluded the FBI for 16 years after bombing a napalm laboratory as a Vietnam War protest. This lifestyle involves continually moving their base of operations and establishing new identities, which is especially hard on their children, 18-year-old Danny (River Phoenix) and 10-year-old Harry (Jonas Abry), who can never amass a group of friends or an academic record. This last problem comes to the fore when they arrive in a New Jersey town where the high school music teacher (Ed Crowley) takes an interest in Danny's piano playing, encouraging him to apply early admission to Juilliard. Danny yearns to follow this dream, but knows that separating from his parents would be a permanent break -- the aging hippies rarely even see their own parents, and can never inform anyone where they've moved. Arthur can't stand the idea of breaking up the family unit, which has provided the support that's allowed him to tolerate life on the move, but Annie sees her own sacrificed dreams in her son's prodigious musical talents, and begins pressuring Arthur to grant the boy his independence. Complicating factors, Danny has fallen in love with the daughter of his music teacher (Martha Plimpton), but can't allow himself to get too close to her, because he may have to leave again at any moment. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide
Review
Danny is falling in love with Lorna Phillips, the daughter of the local music teacher. As Danny and Lorna walk along the beach, he is incapable of walking next to her. He keeps running ahead, because running is what he has been forced to do his entire life. His family has been underground since his parents' college days when they caused the death of an innocent bystander during the bombing of a college building. The film deals with the very real emotional pain the family experiences when Danny decides he no longer wants to run. Aside from the pressures of living underground, their characters have not had to pay for their crimes in any profound way, until the point when their son will leave them and they may possibly never see him again. While the world chases after the Popes, they draw strength from each other. Danny's leaving will make their lifestyle all the more difficult; there will be one less person they can rely on. Christine Lahti and Judd Hirsch are note perfect. River Phoenix gives a performance full of appropriately conflicting emotions. It is, along with his work in Dogfight, one of the performances that magnifies what he might have become if not for his untimely death. Sidney Lumet underplays the visuals, allowing the actors the room to be subtle. The family's strength and love goes hand-in-hand with their unrelenting stress. The actors project weariness and love in equal measure, making for an emotionally devastating resolution when Danny finally makes the break. Running on Empty manages to tell a realistic story about ordinary people in an extraordinary situation. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
Ed Crowley - Mr. Phillips; L.M. Kit Carson - Gus Winant; Steven Hill - Mr. Patterson; Augusta Dabney - Mrs. Patterson; David Margulies - Dr. Jonah Reiff; Michael Boatman - Spaulding; Elzbieta Czyzewska - Julliard Woman; Daniel Dassin - Waiter; Alice Drummond - Mrs. Powell; Ronnie Gilbert - Mrs. Taylor; Donna Hanover - Reporter; Marcia Jean Kurtz - School Clerk; Bobo Lewis - Home Ec Teacher; Jenny Lumet - Music Girl; Burke Pearson - Julliard Man; Angela Pietropinto - English Teacher; Sloane Shelton - Mrs. Phillips; Lynne Thigpen - Contact at Eldridge St.; Sidney Lumet; Carol Cavallo - Woman at Meeting; Leila Danette - Maid; William Foeller - Man at Meeting; Thomas Fraioli - Violinist; Herb Lovelle - Hospital Clerk; Joey Thrower - Catcher; Justine Johnston - Librarian
Credit
Robert Guerra - Art Director, Todd Thaler - Casting, Griffin Dunne - Co-producer, Amy Robinson - Co-producer, Anna Hill Johnstone - Costume Designer, Burtt Harris - First Assistant Director, Sidney Lumet - Director, Andrew Mondshein - Editor, Burtt Harris - Executive Producer, Tony Mottola - Composer (Music Score), Toy Russell - Makeup, Philip Rosenberg - Production Designer, Gerry Fisher - Cinematographer, Burtt Harris - Producer, Naomi Foner - Producer, Phil Smith - Set Designer, James J. Sabat - Sound/Sound Designer, Naomi Foner - Screenwriter, Lynn Bernay - Costume/Wardrobe
Phoenix was nominated for an Academy Award as best supporting actor for his role in the film; Naomi Foner was nominated for Best Original Screenplay. Phoenix was nominated for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role at the Golden Globes; Lahti was nominated for Best Performance by an Actress. The film was nominated for Best Director and Best Motion Picture (Drama), and it won a Golden Globe for Best Screenplay. Plimpton was nominated for a Young Artist Award for Best Young Actress in a Motion Picture.
The film marked the second time Phoenix and Plimpton would play one another's romantic interest, having co-starred in the film The Mosquito Coast two years earlier.
Tagline:In 1971, Arthur and Annie Pope blew up a napalm lab to protest the war... Ever since then they have been on the run from the FBI. They chose their lives. Now their son must choose his.
The story revolves around parents Annie and Arthur Pope (Lahti and Hirsch) who in the 1970s were responsible for the anti-war protest bombing of a napalm laboratory. The incident accidentally blinded and paralyzed a janitor who wasn't supposed to be there. They've been on the run ever since, relying on an underground network of supporters who help them financially. At the time of the incident, their son Danny (Phoenix) was two years old. As the film begins, he is in his late teens, and the family (along with younger son Harry) are again relocating and assuming new identities.
As the film progresses, Danny's overwhelming talent as a pianist catches the attention of his music teacher at high school. The teacher begins to pry into Danny's personal life, particularly questioning why records from his previous school are unobtainable. While he pushes Danny to audition for Juilliard, Danny also falls in love with Lorna (Plimpton), the teacher's teenage daughter.
As the pressure to have his own life and realize his own dreams intensifies, Danny reveals his family secret to Lorna. Meanwhile, Annie finds out about Danny's audition, and begins to come to terms with the fact that she must let her son go and find his own way. This does not sit well with Arthur, even as Annie risks their safety to contact her estranged father and arrange a home and life for Danny if they should decide to leave him behind.
In the end, Arthur realizes that he is becoming the very type of authoritarian that he once rebelled against, and that he has no right to limit his son's freedoms. The family leaves Danny behind and heads off for their next identity in a new town.
Running on Empty was released on September 9, 1988 in 22 theaters where it grossed $215,157 on its opening weekend. It went on to make $2.8 million in North America.[2]
Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars and called it "one of the best films of the year".[3] In her review for the New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, "The courtship between Danny and Lorna is staged especially disarmingly, with Mr. Phoenix and Miss Plimpton conveying a sweet, serious and believably gradual attraction".[4]Newsweek magazine's David Ansen wrote, "A curious mix of soap opera and social history, Lumet's film shouldn't work, yet its fusion of oddly matched parts proves emotionally overpowering. You have to be pretty tough to resist it".[5] However, Hal Hinson, in his review for the Washington Post wrote, "Running on Empty doesn't make much sense for the title of the movie ... but it does work as a description of the director. Sidney Lumet may be the laziest major director working today".[6]
