Third-generation Florida beekeeper Ulee Jackson may have gotten out of Vietnam alive, but he left a part of himself behind. Now he methodically tends his bees, carefully provides for his two grandchildren and keeps his emotions at bay. But when a long-buried secret threatens Ulee's business and family, he is forced to break through his emotional walls and confront the terror of his wounded spirit.
_**Low-key Southern Gothic about a struggling family living by the swamps of western Florida**_
An emotionally-detached Vietnam vet making a living as a beekeeper on the boggy panhandle of Florida (Peter Fonda) deals with grief, the meaninglessness of life, his son in prison (Tom Wood), a drug-addled daughter-in-law (Christine Dunford), a rebellious granddaughter (Jessica Biel), a new neighbor (Patricia Richardson) and a couple of thugs from Orlando (Steven Flynn and Dewey Weber).
"Ulee’s Gold" (1997) is a slice-of-life Southern Gothic that could be mentioned in the same breath as “Ode to Billy Joe” (1976), “The Man in the Moon” (1991), “Sling Blade” (1996), “The Apostle” (1997) “Undertow” (2004), “Back Roads” (2018) and “The Devil All the Time” (2020). While it’s not as relentlessly downbeat & sordid as the last two, it certainly presents some of the most harrowing challenges of life in the modern world of which most viewers can relate. I definitely could.
Speaking of which, I like the movie’s mundane realism and that it has the confidence to take its time to tell its story. While most critics praise the film, one armchair critic complained that the events are so humdrum every-day that it plays like a Lifetime or Hallmark flick. But this presupposes that theatrical movies HAVE to include constant unrealistic thrills and action, which obviously isn’t the case, particularly when it comes to a drama. Imagine how eye-rolling it would be if, say, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest” threw in an explosion or action sequence every ten minutes.
The film runs 1 hour, 53 minutes, and was shot on the panhandle of Florida just east of Panama City in Apalachicola, Port St. Joe and Wewahitchka, with one sequence done in Orlando.
GRADE: A-