The Trip to Bountiful

The Trip to Bountiful is a 1985 film starring Geraldine Page, John Heard, Carlin Glynn, Richard Bradford and Rebecca De Mornay. Geraldine Page won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Carrie Watts. The movie was adapted by Horton Foote from his television play of the same name.

The film, set in the postWWII 1940s, tells the story of an elderly woman, Carrie Watts Page, who wants to return to her home, the small, rural agriculturebased town which was of course destroyed by the Depression and the Dust Bowl, where she grew up on the eve of the Great Depression, but shes frequently stopped from leaving Houston, Texas by her daughterinlaw and her overprotective son who will not let her travel alone. Her son and daughterinlaw both know that the town has long since disappeared, due to the Depression. Longterm outmigration was caused by the drawdown of all the towns ablebodied men to the wartime draft calls and by the demand for industrial workers in the war production plants of the big cities.Old Mrs. Watts is determined to outwit her son and bossy daughterinlaw, and sets out to catch a train, only to find that trains do not go to Bountiful anymore. She eventually boards a bus to a town near her childhood home. On the journey, she befriends a girl traveling alone DeMornay and reminisces about her younger years and grieves for her lost relatives. Her son and daughterinlaw eventually track her down, with the help of the local police force. However, Mrs. Watts is determined. The local sheriff, moved by her yearning to visit her girlhood home, offers to drive her out to what remains of Bountiful. The village is deserted, and the few remaining houses are derelict. Mrs. Watts is moved to tears as she surveys her fathers land and the remains of the family home. Her son eventually turns up, and drives her back to Houston. ........

Source: Wikipedia