Winter People

Directed by Ted Kotcheff, Winter People follows 1930s widower (Kurt Russell’s Wayland Jackson) as he and his young daughter (Amelia Burnette’s Paula) become enmeshed within a small Appalachian community – with Wayland’s tentative romance of a local unwed mother (Kelly McGillis’ Collie) inevitably causing complications and controversy. Filmmaker Kotcheff, working from Carol Sobieski’s screenplay, delivers an often sluggish melodrama that admittedly benefits from its compelling rural atmosphere and assortment of agreeable performances, with, in terms of the latter, Russell’s agreeable and magnetic turn as the timid protagonist going a long way towards smoothing over the narrative’s sporadic bumps and missteps. (Lloyd Bridges, cast as Collie’s affable father, offers up scene-stealing work that remains an ongoing highlight within the proceedings.) And although the rather padded-out midsection does prove a test to one’s patience, Winter People, buoyed by a genuinely surprising third-act twist, benefits from an engaging, entertaining final stretch that ensures it concludes on a reasonably satisfying note – which cements the picture’s place as a decent-enough yet palpably overlong endeavor that should’ve topped out at around 90 minutes.

**1/2 out of ****