Oh, and did I mention I have this inordinate amount of fear for anyone who used to star on Touched By An Angel? Yes. I hated TBAA. To this day, if you ask me for the name of a show I can't stand, TBAA will be the first thing I mention.
So it was with some trepidation that I rented Miracle In The Woods, seeing as how it stars Della Reese (aka: the older, wiser angel). Upon renting it, I discovered that it also stars Patricia Heaton, whose Albertsons commercials are just begging for a Commercial Bashing, AJ-style. Still... the movie had Anna Chlumsky, and since it was one of the only things with her that I've never seen... I decided to brave it.
Miracle In The Woods is the story of two sisters, Wanda (Heaton) and Sarah (Baxter). They grew up in a small town, but when they became adults, Wanda stayed close by, and Sarah moved far away. At the beginning of the film, their mother has just died, so Sarah comes back for the funeral, bringing along her daughter, Gina (Chlumsky).
The day after the funeral, Old Ma's will gets read and Sarah is upset to discover that she's been left nothing but a chair. This is bad news for Sarah, because (as we will come to find out) she seriously needs some money right now. So Sarah's all, Hey wait a second -- what about the pecan grove mama owned? Is that in the will?? Turns out it's not, so the sisters spend the next half of the movie trying to decide if they should sell the land or how they should split it, etc. Sarah wants the cash; Wanda is almost ready to sell it -- until they discover that a woman, Lilly Cooper (Reese), has been living on it, in a little cottage.
Sarah's irate; she wants Lilly kicked off the land, NOW. But Gina befriends Lilly and comes to find that Lilly is a very nice old lady. However, Lilly has had a very sad past. She tells her story to Gina and to Wanda, and we learn that Lilly married young, was tricked by her drug-dealing husband, and managed to lose her baby. See, due to an evil sheriff, Lilly had been forced to go stay in an asylum... and when she was released, she wanted to go back for her baby, but she was too scared of her husband (and the sheriff) to do so. She spent the next 50 years missing the child she lost and hoping she could someday see him again.
Perhaps she can -- with Gina's help!
Will Lilly be able to reunite with her now-grown son before her ticking-time-bomb health takes a turn for the worse? Will Gina and her mom learn to forgive and forget some painful events of their past? Will sisters Sarah and Wanda learn to get along? Will Sarah stop being a money-grubbing jerkface?
Miracle In The Woods is a movie about forgiving people for being insensitive, trying to rebuild bridges, and being charitable toward others. It is available on DVD.
