ONE TRUE THING

• Starring Meryl Streep, Renee Zellweger and William Hurt
• Directed by Carl Franklin
• Rated R, with profanity; running time 127 minutes
• With 10 as a must-see, Jack gives this film a 8

By Jack Garner
Democrat and Chronicle

(Sept. 18, 1998) -- After more than 25 years on this planet, Manhattan magazine writer Ellen Gulden (Renee Zellweger) is reasonably sure she knows her parents:

Her father (William Hurt) is an imposing, even intimidating literary essayist and professor. Her mother (Meryl Streep) is a homemaker whose life is a silly, superficial parade of community activities, undertaken with other gossipy biddies.

It's a home life Ellen is happy to have left behind as she pursues her considerable personal ambitions.

But all that changes when her father tells her that Mom has cancer -- and Ellen must return home to help them through the crisis. That's when she finds out her mother and father are not entirely what she had assumed, and discovers the "one true thing" at the core of her family story.

The family's dynamics and the strained relationship between a grown child and her parents are explored with sensitivity and insight in this new drama from director Carl Franklin.

Adapted by Karen Croner from a novel by Anna Quindlen, One True Thing is firmly in the tradition of such films as I Never Sang for My Father, in which grown children finally come to understand the strengths, weaknesses and foibles of their parents.

In Ellen case, she discovers her father is neither the moral tower of strength she had assumed nor the purest or most profound of literary lights. And her mother's quiet acceptance of his infidelities may reflect a certain strength, not the weakness Ellen believes.

Fortunately, such issues rise above the film's central plot -- a daughter nursing a mother through a terminal illness -- which could have been yet another disease-of-the-month drama of the sort frequently seen on television. The classy, top-shelf acting of Streep, Zellweger and Hurt make the film even more rewarding.

One True Thing also marks an impressive shift for director Franklin, whose early reputation rested on two crime films, One False Move and Devil in a Blue Dress.

The film is by no means flawless. For example, Ellen's college-aged brother, Brian (Tom Everett Scott), puts in a superficial appearance, then disappears. We never understand why he couldn't help more with the family crisis. The film would have been stronger if the character had never been introduced.

But that's a relatively minor concern. The one true thing to remember about this film is how worthwhile it is.