Themes: Haunted By the Past, Parenthood, Home From the War
Main Cast: Elijah Wood, Kevin Costner, Mare Winningham, Lexi Randall, Christine Baranski
Release Year: 1994
Country: US
Run Time: 125 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG13
Plot
Jon Avnet's The War is set in the rural south and brimming with lessons on social consciousness, much like his previous effort, Fried Green Tomatoes (1991). During the summer of 1970 in backwoods Mississippi, Stephen Simmons (Kevin Costner) is struggling to be a breadwinner for his family while still suffering post-traumatic stress disorder from his service in the Vietnam War. His wife Lois (Mare Winningham) provides most of the family income. Stephen gets a job in a mine and saves a friend who has been injured, helping him erase his guilt over abandoning another friend during a firefight in Vietnam. Meanwhile, the Simmons children, Stu (Elijah Wood) and Lidia (Lexi Randall) are feuding with an even poorer family of neighbors, the Lipnickis, over access to a tree fort that Stu and Lidia built. Mr. Lipnicki (Raynor Scheine) is drunken and abusive and helps escalate the disagreement into a major battle for the fort. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
Raynor Scheine - Mr. Lipnicki; Bruce A. Young - Moe; LaToya Chisholm - Elvadine; Charlotte Lewis - Amber; Gary Basaraba - Dodge; Jay Brooks - Old Man; Bill Coates - Catfish Man; Dorothy Davis - Nurse; Tom Even - Doctor; J. Don Ferguson - Mine Foreman; Afemo Omilami - Quarry Man; Mary Nell Santacroce - Mrs. Higgens; Nick Searcy - John Ray Wilkens; Tim Ware - Fat Man at Auction; Debra Zane; Judson Vaughn - Soldier; Lucas Black - Ebb Lipnicki
Credit
Jeremy Conway - Art Director, Deborah Love - Associate Producer, Debra Zane - Casting, David Rubin - Casting, Martin Huberty - Co-producer, Lisa Lindstrom - Co-producer, Molly Maginnis - Costume Designer, Deborah Love - First Assistant Director, Jon Avnet - Director, Debra Neil - Editor, Todd Baker - Executive Producer, Eric Eisner - Executive Producer, Thomas Newman - Composer (Music Score), Rosemary Zurlo - Makeup, Kristi Zea - Production Designer, Alma Kuttruff - Production Designer, Geoffrey Simpson - Cinematographer, Jon Avnet - Producer, Jordan Kerner - Producer, Kathy Mcworter - Producer, Karen O'Hara - Set Designer, Mary H. Ellis - Sound/Sound Designer, Kathy Mcworter - Screenwriter
Kevin Costner plays a shell-shocked Vietnam veteran whose emotional issues prevent him from being able to hold down a job and care for his impoverished family. Stu Simmons (Elijah Wood), his sister and their friends spend the summer building a tree house, and learn their own lessons about war and peace in a conflict with a neighboring gang of kids, the Lipnicki kids, who seek to destroy what they have built.
The film received a PG-13 by the MPAA. It has a 126 minute run time.
Critical response
Wood's performance in this movie gained him a nomination for a 'Young Star Award' (for which he was nominated four times, and won twice), and Roger Ebert said in his review of the film that:
"Elijah Wood has emerged, I believe, as the most talented actor in his age group, in Hollywood history".[1]
