hyped garbage

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Resurrection is one of the most moving films I have seen in some time. However, the original had a different ending than the DVD version that came out afterwards. To this day I cannot comprehend what was in the mind of any producer to make this change.The original film ending as presented on TV shows Edna hugging the boy goodbye before the family left, but it was more of holding him close as her healing energy was passing from her into the boy.From his expression as the family drives away, he and Edna wave goodbye to each other, and you know that he would be well again soon, and Edna would go back back to her simple life.The DVD version changed that powerful ending to one where Edna simply holds the boy and the camera freeze frames her face as the credits roll.Why this crude destruction of the original is beyond me. If anyone is lucky or able to find the original, somehow put word of it out there because I have not been able to find a copy.

There are many scenes in this movie that moved me to tears. I do sort of wish the main character had sided with God as the reason for her talents. She never said it wasn't God though. I really enjoyed this film. Watch for the scenes in which Burstyn's character heals the twisted form of on woman in front of disbelievers and the viewers own eyes. The scene in the end of the film with a little boy having cancer unattended briefly in his car is also moving. This movie made me recall parts of Elmer Gantry for some reason while I was watching. I am glad that Burstyn chose not to make it in the vein of The Exorcist but more uplifting and spiritual. I cannot believe at this time its not out on DVD. What are the producers and DVD makers waiting for?

***SPOILERS*** Surviving a deadly car crash where her husband Joe, Jeffrey DeMunn, was killed Mae McCaule,Ellen Burstyn, momentarily was declared dead in the hospital emergency room when all her vital functions flat-lined but then almost miraculously came back to life! It was later in the movie that Mae began to realize that not only was she given a second chance to live but was also a gift that in the end would almost cause her to die again at the hands of her crazed and bible thumping lover who's life she saved with that very gift that she received from beyond.It took a while for Mae to get her life back together again in her recuperation from the car crash that not only took the life of her husband Joe but also left her an invalid not able to walk. An incident earlier in the movie, after she came back to life in the hospital emergency room, in Mae's encounter with old man Esco Brown, Richard Farnsworth, on her way to Kansas to live with her father John, Robert Blossom, and Grandma Pearl, Eve Le Gallienne, may have had a far more greater impact on her life, besides Esco filling her gas tank with gaoling, then she at first thought. Esco a strange but friendly and personable sort of guy put Mae at ease in the stress that she at that time was going through. Later in the movie, when you had almost forgot about the old guy, we see that Mae in fact realized what he did for her in Mae herself doing somewhat the same thing, for a very sick and terminally ill little boy, that was completely overlooked in her initial encounter with Esco.I took a while for Mae to realize what the gift that she received from the result of her car accident was. It wasn't until she was able to cure herself of her paralysis that things started to really get a bit edgy with the people in and around town whom she lived with. You would think that curing the incurable would have made those who knew her as well as those like her boyfriend Carl Carpenter,Sam Shaperd, that Mae cured appreciate what she did for them. Instead a number of people that included Carl and his fire and brimstone bible thumping father Earl, Richard Hamilton, took Mae's kind unselfish and God-given abilities as being that of the Devil himself who was using Mae for his own evil purposes.The more proof, including controlled laboratory tests with ill and crippled persons, confirming Mae's miraculous powers being genuine came out the more both Earl and his by now very unstable son Carl began to suspect, with Mae not reciting any passages from the bible in her curing sessions, that the Devil had a hand in them. Which finally lead to Carl, now completely out of his cotton-picking skull, crashing a healing seminar headed by Mae where she almost got killed by the wild and crazy motorcycle riding and gun toting religious lunatic.Mae coming to the realization that whatever powers that she has are to be kept as much under the radar screen, or away from the public, as possible is now as the film ends, what seems like ten years later, running the same gas station/general store that the late Esco Brown did. Mae in effect is doing ,besides pumping gas and selling cold drinks and hard candies, what he was doing earlier in the movie in helping those who desperately needed his help without them really knowing about it. Mea is preforming miracles in that out of the way outpost in the middle of the vast and empty Arizona/Nevada Desert that may well be, to those who visit it, in the deepest recesses of one's mind as well as at the same time on the outer most fringes of what we conceive to be human reality. In that in between dimension of what's real and whats imaginary known to all of us as the "Twilight Zone".

The acting, script, and cinematic techniques were superb (for 1980). From Ellen Burstyn through the whole cast, everyone was believable.True healers are quite rare, and it would be very tempting indeed to sensationalize this theme. Instead, the story was beautifully written, and quietly realistic, which made it quite stirring - even haunting. Ellen Burston's performance is absolutely one of her very best. Eva Le Gallienne is magnificent as Grandma Pearl. For some reason Resurrection is passing into obscurity, and I hope it will be rediscovered by more people, especially the younger generation. Consequently, I often tell others about it, and I hope everyone will try to see it.