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Rating: NR
Director: Sheldon Larry
Writers: Gerald Di Pego, Elizabeth George Speare
Stars: Keith Carradine, Annette O’Toole, Brendan Fletcher
Release Date: January 5, 1997
Run time: 1 hour, 35 minute
THE PLOT:
(via wiki)
Keeping The Promise tells the story of a 13-year-old boy, Matt (Brendan Fletcher) and his father, (Keith Carradine) who, as early settlers, together build a wooden cabin in Maine in 1768. However, Matt’s father must head back to Quincy, Massachusetts, to get Matt’s mother, sister, and newborn sibling who were all left behind so Matt and his father could build shelter for them. Matt’s father promises to return in seven weeks and Matt is left alone with his father’s old watch (a family heirloom) and a hunting rifle to guard the family’s newly built homestead and field crops. Unfortunately, Matt finds himself enduring many hardships for which he is unprepared. His hunting rifle is stolen by a stranger named Ben Loomis; while chasing after Ben: Matt trips and falls into a river, unconscious. Luckily, Matt’s misadventure has not gone unnoticed and he is pulled from the water. The Indians he has learned to fear, through tales that his father had told him, save his life in this part of the story.
His injured leg is treated by the Indian chief named Saknis. While recovering, Matt begrudgingly allows Saknis to take his book (Robinson Crusoe) for saving his life. Saknis later returns with the book and asks Matt whether a knife or a book would win a fight – Matt says the knife would win, Saknis points out that the words of the white man have already won the land away from his people. Saknis commands that Matt is to teach his grandson to read. Although uncertain of how to teach anyone, especially the unwilling Attean, Matt accepts the task out of obligation, as he owes his life to the man.
Meanwhile, his father returns to his family only to find there is a fever in the village which kills their neighbour’s daughter, the family leave quickly knowing that the town will probably be closed to stop the spread of fever. On their way the newborn and the mother come down with fever, this delays them and when they reach the boat for its last crossing before winter they are turned back because of the baby’s illness. The Mother recovers, but the baby does not and has to be buried as they travel the land route.
Back in Maine, Matt does not immediately befriend Attean, although the two young boys eventually form a strong friendship as they help each other through difficult circumstances. When Matt’s family has not yet returned after many months Attean invites Matt to join his tribe, who are moving west to new hunting grounds. Although Matt is good friends with Attean and enjoys Indian culture, he has not forgotten his family. Matt has to decide whether to join the Indian tribe or return to his cabin and wait for his family to return.
Near the end of the story, Attean goes on a vision quest and becomes a brave. He visits Matt and gives him a pair of snowshoes for the winter and asks him to come with the tribe. Matt decides to wait for his family, although parting from his new friend, Attean, is difficult. The two boys trade gifts, Matt gives Attean the book of Robinson Crusoe and Attean leaves his dog behind with Matt. Sure enough, Matt’s family returns in the winter snows, guided for the last few days by Ben Loomis, who makes himself absent as soon as the family are reunited.
My Review:
Not too long ago, I read Elizabeth George Speare’s historical children’s novel, The Sign of the Beaver. The book follows the story of Matt Hallowell’s (based on a true story) multi-month stay alone in the colonial Maine wilderness waiting for his father to travel to Quincy, Massachusetts, and return with his mother and siblings. This film is the made-for-TV adaptation of her book so I wanted to check it out to see how it measured up. I became even more excited about watching this film when, after looking into it, I saw that it starred Keith Carradine and Annette O’Toole (who you might remember as Martha Kent in Smallville.) For the most part, I was happy with the end product. The obviously low budget of the made-for-TV film didn’t hurt it. The inexpensive look of the production fit well for a period piece set in the early 18th century Maine wilderness. The whole movie was carried by its excellent acting performances and by the dramatic underlying story about a 13 year old boy surviving alone in the Colonial era Maine wilderness for months.
There were some significant changes made to the story in its TV adaptation – and I’d guess those changes were so that the production could land a couple of relatively well-known actors to help sell the film to audiences tuning in. While the book focuses almost exclusively on Matt, the boy left alone in the wilderness, the film focuses a lot of time and dramatic effort on his parents’ efforts to reunite with him. the end results is that the world felt larger and more fleshed out in the adaptation than it did in the book. This was almsot certainly a necessary change, for the adaptation, because so much of the text of the book is inside Matt’s thoughts and he’s living alone. (It’s difficult to put thoughts to the screen.)
The additional world-building added a layer of emotion and desperation to the story that isn’t as present in the books. In the books, Matt is largely just getting by, day by day. The focus is on the how of that. (He learns from his new-found Native friends how to hunt, fish, and stay warm without the tools and resources his civilization was accustomed to utilizing.) In the film, we get to see his mother’s grief after losing her baby, rather than hearing about the loss after the fact when everyone reunites. We get to see both parents’ desperation over leaving their child alone, long beyond the time they told him they would, and their grief and worry over his fate. The film gives us a more broken-down and sad Matt than the one from the books, too. The changes makes the film more watchable for a TV audience, but they also probably change the story from one aimed at children to one aimed at an older audience.
That said, there’s nothing in terms of violence or foul language that makes the movie inappropriate for younger viewers. It’s just perhaps a bit too emotionally intense, in a way the book wasn’t.
In changing the story to include more of the story of Matt’s parents, the film took away a lot of Matt’s journey and the development of his friendship with Atean. We don’t really actually see Matt learn how to track in the wilderness, we see very little of his efforts to teach Atean to read, and we lost entirely one of the most crucial moments in the book – Matt’s role in helping Ateam to kill a bear that they came across by chance while together in the wilderness. That was disappointing. But I don’t know how well a lot of that would have translated to the film.
Overall, if you’re a fan of the book, I recommend checking out the film, too. It’s very well-acted, with a strong emotional story, and most of its adaptation choices make a lot of sense for the change in the medium. At the time of this writing, it’s available for free on YouTube.
