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“They do so much for you, you think you’re on vacation.”
This is the young doctor’s advice to Dorothy Thorp, who is 88 years old and not looking for a vacation.
Or rather, she wants to go on a trip, but it’s not the sort of journey you take for leisure or adventure. Also, the doctor’s real intent is to convince Dorothy that she should give up driving a car and living by herself, and seek out a retirement community instead.
Instead, Dorothy takes it upon herself to get into her aging Pontiac and drive hundreds of miles from Kansas, where she’s lived since 1952, to her hometown of Terre Haute, Ind. There’s a friend there she hasn’t seen in years, and desperately wants one more visit before her time has passed.
Lovingly played by Joicie Appell, Dorothy is based on the real-life mother of director Stephen Wallace Pruitt, who co-wrote the screenplay with Mary Settle Pruitt, about her long-ago friendship with a girl named Pat. They haven’t seen or spoken to each other in decades, but Dorothy feels the call to return to her roots, particularly the tree where they used to play all the time.
In western Indiana, it’s known as the Great Oak Tree of Vigo County, although “The Tree” was mostly shot in Kansas and Missourri.
Openly sentimental and moving, “The Tree” is the sort of movie destined to make you shed a tear or two. Appell’s performance is direct and empathetic. The story mostly consists of Dorothy’s encounters with strangers along the way to Indiana, and how she’s able to form deep connections in just moments.
For example, she stops by a diner for a late-night bite, and befriends the lone woman (an excellent Christie Courville) still there. Despite being closed, they find time for a slice of cake, a little conversation, and soon a sharing of past deeds neither woman is proud of.
Dorothy also encounters a Vietnam veteran who’s become the detritus of his small town, sleeping on the streets as the local folk have become inured to his pitiable presence. Dorothy pulls a lawn chair out of her trunk, settles in for a talk and changes a life.
In a lot of ways, the film reminded me of “The World’s Fastest Indiana,” which ostensibly was about a motorcycle rider but really was about an elderly man’s journey toward his lost youth and the impression he leaves on people along the way.
Gorgeously shot (cinematography by Stephen Wallace Pruitt and Michael Lopez) with an inviting piano-dominant musical score by Randy Bonifeld, “The Tree” is old-fashioned moviemaking at its best. You don’t often see films centered on an elderly woman, get to walk a mile in her shoes or admire the fine folds of skin around her beaming eyes.
What a treat it is to spend this time with her.
The Tree Trailer from Stephen Wallace Pruitt on Vimeo.