Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actor 1997

The Contenders:

Robert Duvall: The Apostle
Jack Nicholson: As Good as it Gets (winner)
Matt Damon: Good Will Hunting
Peter Fonda: Ulee’s Gold
Dustin Hoffman: Wag the Dog

Tupelo Honey

Film: Ulee’s Gold
Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.

When Ulee’s Gold showed up in the mail, I can’t really say with any honesty that I was excited about it. This is, after all, a film about a widowed beekeeper in Florida. How interesting could it be, right? And, if it really were about beekeeping, it would be a very long two hours. Fortunately for all of us, Ulee’s Gold is about more than bees and about a hell of a lot more than a widowed beekeeper.

Ulysses “Ulee” Jackson (Peter Fonda) is that widowed beekeeper mentioned above. As the film opens, we learn almost organically that he is raising his two granddaughters, Casey (Jessica Biel) and Penny (Vanessa Zima). In the same way, we learn the reason that he has custody of his granddaughters. His son Jimmy (Tom Wood) is in prison for some sort of larceny or robbery. Jimmy’s wife Helen (Christine Dunford) is a junkie hanging around Orlando. The plot starts moving just as Ulee is getting ready to bring in his tupelo honey, the week or two of the year where he makes most of his money.