Thoughts on The Journey of Natty Gann

 

via IMDB

"Nice dog."
"It's a wolf."
I don't have a whole lot to say about The Journey of Natty Gann. An IMDB user called it "Homeward Bound but with people," which is pretty accurate.

Natty (Meredith Salenger) travels from Chicago to Seattle during the Depression to reunite with her dad Sol (Ray Wise). He was ready to send for her, but it was too late for Natty and her temporary guardian, Connie (Lainie Kazan, basically auditioning for an Annie revival), who's prepared to declare parental abandonment. Natty and/or her canine companion, Wolf (Jed), spend much of the movie either just making or just missing their next ride. I actually got annoyed by the third "Will they get on the train in time?" sequence. Sometimes they travel with Harry (John Cusack, also giving a little too much to his role), sometimes they're not.

Directed by Jeremy Kagan, with a script by Jeanne Rosenberg, Journey would have benefitted from either less episodic or more distinct storytelling. How long did Natty travel? Exactly where is she at any given moment? Who knows? The time period feels like an afterthought, although it does contribute to 

one of the movie's most evocative scenes, when a shantytown is attacked by respectable citizens. Given that the focus is on a seemingly defenseless adolescent girl rather than two dogs and a cat, the danger in Journey is mostly human-based. You can count on one hand the number of people who don't treat Natty badly. This may have been the first Disney movie to include attempted molestation.

Journey isn't a bad movie. If I saw it before Homeward Bound, I'd probably like it more. Salenger and Jed have good chemistry, I could buy Natty and Harry's developing friendship and the pathos is genuine once Sol assumes Natty's dead and loses his will to live, taking on dangerous lumberjack work. The grand finale is a tearjerker. I just wish the lead up was better.

"I tell you, this is great. We got the mountains, we got the lakes."

"Lakes? This is nothin'. We got a lake five times this size in Chicago. And the weather, the wind is so strong, my dad can lean like this and not fall over. That's weather."

"In Chicago, really?"

"Yeah."

"I passed through Chicago once. I didn't see much. A lot of lights."

"You ain't seen Chicago, you ain't seen nothin'."

"You're a real woman of the world, kid."

Recommended with reservations.

Thoughts:
-- "Hey, Sol. Did you hear about this golfer? Just came on the radio? Lightning strikes his metal shoes and kills him. Shocking, huh?"
-- Box Office: Grossing $9.7 million on a $7.5 million budget, this opened outside the top 10 and came in at No. 87 for 1985.
-- Critic's Corner: "Jed gives a forthright and believable performance," Janet Maslin wrote. "Miss Salenger, for her part, gives one, too, and she carries the movie nicely."
-- Awards Watch: Salenger scored a Young Artist Award for Best Starring Performance by a Young Actress, winning over the likes of  Joyce Hyser, Fairuza Balk, Amanda Peterson (for Explorers) and Drew Barrymore (for Cat's Eye). The movie was nominated in the Best Drama category but lost to Cocoon. Albert Wolsky's costumes scored an Oscar nod, but lost to Ran.

-- There's no entry for Memorable Music, but I want to call attention to Connie briefly singing "Mean to Me." The song was performed on Broadway in Ain't Misbehavin' by Nell Carter, who did end up playing Miss Hannigan.

-- Hey, It's ...!: Scatman Crothers, Barry Miller and Verna Bloom.
-- Maybe I'm imagining things, but I think there was a bit of ambiguity when Natty overhears a train station worker telephoning that he's found her. She thinks he's calling the reform school she ran away from, but I can't shake the idea that he might have been calling Sol's logging camp. Again, if we had a better idea just how far she was from Seattle ...

-- "Buck up, kid, will ya?" "I'm buckin'! ... I'm buckin', right?"
-- Next: Commando. On deck: Jagged Edge, After Hours. Coming soon: Silver Bullet, Re-Animator, Dreamchild.