Last night’s movie: The Seventh Stream

Usually I only write about theatrical films but some TV films are special enough to warrant it as well. Last night I finally got around to watching the Hallmark Hall of Fame production of The Seventh Stream (thanks Tivo) and I’m glad a friend asked me to record it, even though she ended up not wanting to watch it. Scott Glenn and Saffron Burrows star in this old Irish folktale of the Selkie, a seal come to human form, who brings a heart back to a distraught widower fisherman in the first years of the 20th century. Glenn must, of course, rescue the exquisite Burrows from a dangerous man and come to know her tue nature and needs from an old blind man since this is a mythic tale whose theme is the power of love to transform and redeem.

Writer-director John Grey wrote the script 15 years ago but only now was able to get it produced and a lovely job he did, filming the rocky cliffs and beaches of Tully, Ireland, using the rain almost as another character, light here, heavy there, letting the sky clear for short bursts. Anne Simpson, writing in the Herald, suggests that this film may be a portent of a turn to the gentler in taste after the violent, sexual outburst of the past decade. Perhaps, although if one considers the long line of action movie sequels in the pipeline, one would doubt her conclusion. (Terminator 3, Star Trek 10, X-Men 2, The Scorpion King, Jurassic Park 4, and so forth)