Ulee's Gold

8/7/2021

_**Low-key Southern Gothic about a struggling family living by the swamps of western Florida**_ An emotionally-detached Vietnam vet making a living as a beekeeper on the boggy panhandle of Florida (Peter Fonda) deals with grief, the meaninglessness of life, his son in prison (Tom Wood), a drug-addled daughter-in-law (Christine Dunford), a rebellious granddaughter (Jessica Biel), a new neighbor (Patricia Richardson) and a couple of thugs from Orlando (Steven Flynn and Dewey Weber). "Ulee’s Gold" (1997) is a slice-of-life Southern Gothic that could be mentioned in the same breath as “Ode to Billy Joe” (1976), “The Man in the Moon” (1991), “Sling Blade” (1996), “The Apostle” (1997) “Undertow” (2004), “Back Roads” (2018) and “The Devil All the Time” (2020). While it’s not as relentlessly