Lawrence Naumoff's book turned into a sketchy, meandering TV-vehicle for star Farrah Fawcett, playing a ne'er-do-well good-time girl who pops into her rural hometown only to find she's missed her beloved mama's funeral and that her sister is planning to sell off the old homestead. She decides to work at the local factory and buy sis out, and catches the eye of the hunky foreman (who looks like a clean-shaven Kris Kristofferson in his youth). Up to this point, "Silk Hope" has some drive and a rousing character in Fawcett's Frannie; but, though the dialogue is smart and has a truthful edge, the plot manages to get all balled up. Frannie is supposed to be flighty and irrational, but how she thinks making pocket change at the factory (or starting a pig farm) will help her win back the house is never explained. When Farrah digs deep as an actress, she's more than capable of bringing out a forthright woman who doesn't take baloney from anybody; however, she slips too often here into a little girl act (with a light, tinkly voice). In her quieter moments, the actress is very good, and very attractive (if rail-thin); she's really the only reason to watch the movie. The bumpy narrative darts about from one half-finished sequence to the next, including the proverbial county fair, the emergency at the factory, a crisis in the family, a hunt for Daddy who's been missing for ages, and Frannie standing up to her bosses at work as if she were Eleanor Roosevelt. It just doesn't wash, but then it probably wasn't meant to be an incisive, dramatic entertainment...just a piece of fluff.
Review of Silk Hope
Silk Hope
(1999 TV Movie)
Inconsistently developed and predictable...but with pleasant moments
29 May 2008