An attractive older red-headed woman sits on a porch in a resort house and recount how a murderer is in her midst. It turns out that this "murderer" is an old woman who totally dominates her young son. We are taken back to when the story teller was a girl and how she loved the son. She waited for him to come back year after year. When he did, his mother ruled his every moment. He had no backbone so did nothing, even when he came of age. Now in his sixties, he's back again. She has died and he is "free," but we sort of know what is going to happen. Lazarus came back from the dead. That would make the title a bit ironic. This is a sad story of wasted time and unfulfilled dreams.
2 Reviews
"Damn, it's a long way to death."
classicsoncall22 March 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Narrated from the point of view of an elderly woman, this is a sad and bittersweet story of a man who passed on a potential lifetime of love and happiness due to the domination of a mother who could never be satisfied with the amount of attention she demanded. It reminded me of a good friend I had as a kid whose name was also Roger like the fellow in the story. At various points in his life when Roger was faced with a decision to make, no matter how consequential, he always deferred to the domineering mother, always with a hope that next week, next month, next year, he would be free to move on with his life. So despondent did he become that at one point he even attempted suicide, only to resume his captive life at the whim of his mother. Finally, some fifty years on when the elderly woman finally died, Roger (Noel Trevarthen) tries to resume his relationship with Anna (Janice Rule), but having already lived the prime years of her life, she can only wish Roger well and send him on his way, perhaps to contemplate a life that could have been had he stood up for himself.
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