Rambling Rose (15)

Acclaimed novelist and screenwriter Calder Willingham adapted his own 1972 novel for Martha Coolidge’s tender and deeply humane portrait of desire, repression and social convention in Depression-era Georgia. Laura Dern stars as Rose, a teenage girl rescued from a life of prostitution who is taken in as a domestic by an eccentric Southern family. Her uninhibited sexuality and emotional openness soon disrupt the fragile dynamics of the household, inhabited by the conflicted patriarch (Robert Duvall), his wife (Diane Ladd) and their young son (Lukas Haas), through whose eyes much of the drama unfolds. A sensitive study of innocence, longing and the complexities of human connection, Rambling Rose was distinguished by its remarkable performances: Dern and Ladd became the first real-life mother and daughter to receive acting Academy Award nominations in the same year for their work in the film, a rare achievement that underscored the emotional power of their collaboration.