Jordan Bayne, Filmsite

Like practically every other small town depicted on film, director Jay Craven's fictional Kingdom County, Vermont, is overflowing with eccentrics, racists, and, well, racist eccentrics. A Stranger in the Kingdom starts off as a pleasantly innocuous (but, refreshingly, irony-free) meditation on said beings in this small town, circa 1952. Predictably, it slowly escalates into an increasingly disturbing thriller that exposes fraudulence in the town's institutions and unearths a few long-buried secrets. Unexpectedly, however, it does so with a wit that's alternately compassionate and biting and with performances that create complex characters out of what initially seem like caricatures.

Three strangers enter "the Kingdom": Reverend Walter Andrews (Ernie Hudson), a wise, black, ex-G.I. minister hired to preach at the town's most attended church; Nathan (Sean Nelson), his unruffled teenage son; and Claire LaRiviere (Jordan Bayne), a young, enchantingly innocent yet beguiling French-Canadian expatriate. Through various means (such as the Reverend's tendency to smoke in public or carry a pistol), they all disturb many of the Kingdom's citizens. These range from the relatively sane Charlie (David Lansbury), a young, blandly sincere attorney, to his cousin Resolved (Bill Raymond), an aging, drunken, gravelly-voiced coot who intriguingly comes off as both harmlessly waggish and precariously deranged. When one of the strangers is brutally murdered, accusations between the remaining strangers and the Kingdom's local yokels fly. The film then mutates in a slightly off courtroom drama, with Henry Gibson as a sheriff's flunky (doing the threatening but comic schtick he's been doing so well since Nashville) and a unrecognizable, bearded Martin Sheen in a cameo as an elitist out-of-town prosecutor.

Based on a Frank Howard Mosher novel, the story itself is not particularly illuminating or original, but the attention Craven (Where the Rivers Flow North) devotes to the setting, remarkably, is. Working on a tight budget, he not only captures the effervescent beauty that permeates this New England pastoral setting, but he also has a keen eye for detail and lyricism. It shines most brightly in the shimmering shafts of soft light that fall through the chapel's windows and the loose planks of wood in Resolved's barn; in the nameless, silent mural painter that opens and closes the film (like bookends on a tall tale that's all too real); and even during a frenzied cockfight. At first glance, these eccentrics look merely laughable as they get all riled up at the sight of two motley roosters engaged in a vicious grudge match. But Craven swiftly weaves his camera through the crowd, capturing not only the movements of the dueling roosters, but also those of the spectators. Craven slides the viewers into the joy and delirium of the characters without belittling it as common or inhuman. As much as he romanticizes, however, Craven never glosses over the sometimes backward attitudes that lie underneath and contradict the idyllic facade. By doing so, he makes Kingdom county a fascinating place to visit for a few hours, although you probably wouldn't want to live there.


		A Stranger in the Kingdom by Chris Kriofske 8/10/99 Like practically every other small town depicted on film, director Jay Craven's fictional Kingdom County, Vermont, is overflowing with eccentrics, racists, and, well, racist eccentrics. A Stranger in the Kingdom starts off as a pleasantly innocuous (but, refreshingly, irony-free) meditation on said beings in this small town, circa 1952. Predictably, it slowly escalates into an increasingly disturbing thriller that exposes fraudulence in the town's institutions and unearths a few long-buried secrets. Unexpectedly, however, it does so with a wit that's alternately compassionate and biting and with performances that create complex characters out of what initially seem like caricatures. Three strangers enter "the Kingdom": Reverend Walter Andrews (Ernie Hudson), a wise, black, ex-G.I. minister hired to preach at the town's most attended church; Nathan (Sean Nelson), his unruffled teenage son; and Claire LaRiviere (Jordan Bayne), a young, enchantingly innocent yet beguiling French-Canadian expatriate. Through various means (such as the Reverend's tendency to smoke in public or carry a pistol), they all disturb many of the Kingdom's citizens. These range from the relatively sane Charlie (David Lansbury), a young, blandly sincere attorney, to his cousin Resolved (Bill Raymond), an aging, drunken, gravelly-voiced coot who intriguingly comes off as both harmlessly waggish and precariously deranged. When one of the strangers is brutally murdered, accusations between the remaining strangers and the Kingdom's local yokels fly. The film then mutates in a slightly off courtroom drama, with Henry Gibson as a sheriff's flunky (doing the threatening but comic schtick he's been doing so well since Nashville) and a unrecognizable, bearded Martin Sheen in a cameo as an elitist out-of-town prosecutor. Based on a Frank Howard Mosher novel, the story itself is not particularly illuminating or original, but the attention Craven (Where the Rivers Flow North) devotes to the setting, remarkably, is. Working on a tight budget, he not only captures the effervescent beauty that permeates this New England pastoral setting, but he also has a keen eye for detail and lyricism. It shines most brightly in the shimmering shafts of soft light that fall through the chapel's windows and the loose planks of wood in Resolved's barn; in the nameless, silent mural painter that opens and closes the film (like bookends on a tall tale that's all too real); and even during a frenzied cockfight. At first glance, these eccentrics look merely laughable as they get all riled up at the sight of two motley roosters engaged in a vicious grudge match. But Craven swiftly weaves his camera through the crowd, capturing not only the movements of the dueling roosters, but also those of the spectators. Craven slides the viewers into the joy and delirium of the characters without belittling it as common or inhuman. As much as he romanticizes, however, Craven never glosses over the sometimes backward attitudes that lie underneath and contradict the idyllic facade. By doing so, he makes Kingdom county a fascinating place to visit for a few hours, although you probably wouldn't want to live there.