# Spring Forward (1999)

### reviewed by
Robin Clifford

    "Spring Forward"

Paul (Live Schreiber) is a young ex-con making a fresh start with the Parks and Recreation department in a small New England town. He is teamed with Murphy (Ned Beatty), an old hand at the job and approaching retirement. The duo gets to know each other and become close friend over a year's time in writer/director Tom Gilroy's feature film debut, "Spring Forward."

Newcomer Gilroy shows his stage-bound roots in his first attempt at making a movie. The stagy nature of the film's structure - seven episodes, chronologically over the course of a year, bridged by idyllic sequence of small town life in the Northeast - could have been painful to watch in the small budget film. Except for a pair of big-budget performances by Beatty and Schreiber.

The trite little story of the once fallen and now found Paul, whose criminal past stemmed from financial desperation and not a mean streak, coming into the life of the near-retirement Murphy. As each talky episode unfolds, we learn more and more about the two, who they are, what their desires and needs are (Paul, early on, declares his "need" to get laid), and just what makes 'em tick. There's talk about being a better person as Paul floats his newly learned ideas of karma and religion before Murphy. Murph tells his young colleague about his gay son, Bobby, who, off camera, is dying of an undisclosed disease. (You figure it out.) They even smoke a joint together in a cross-generational bonding ceremony. There is philosophy enough for three plays here.

You can overlook the amateur filmmaking of "Spring Forward" as you watch the two fine performances by the leads. Ned Beatty has had a long career portraying a variety of characters from his "squeal like a pig" victim in "Deliverance" to Otis, the sidekick of Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) in "Superman," and Sheriff Lester Banks in "Cookie's Fortune." He gives Murphy the depth you expect from the actor and portrays the man as truly good and kind in a small-town way. Live Schreiber is also proving himself to be able to play a variety of types and he makes Paul a real person. He has a past, but it does not dictate how he will be in the future. His deference to and respect for Murphy are genuine as the older man's kindness helps to temper Paul's youthful exuberance and sometimes-foul mouth.

Gilroy brings other characters into the mix, but they seem superfluous in what is mainly a two-person play, a la "My Dinner With Andre." Campbell Scott, Ian Hart, Peri Gilpin and others are each brought, briefly, into some of the episodes to flesh out the background. Their appearances, mostly, take the attention away from the leads without moving the story much ahead. Each appearance is so brief that none of the actors are given a chance to put substance into their stick figure roles.

Techs are all right, especially the soft, nicely lighted lensing by Terry Stacey which captures the look and feel of small town USA. Although the bucolic bridging sequences of folks mowing lawns, stringing Christmas lights and burning leaves kept bringing to mind the TV spots for Country-time Lemonade.

"Spring Forward" won't be high on any best lists come year's end, but the two performances by Beatty and Schreiber make this worthwhile fare - at least on the small screen. Because of the acting, I give it a C+.

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