THE Color of Love: Jacey’s Story” is a sensitive, caring family movie that my family wouldn’t sit through for a minute.
Okay, my son is four — and the babysitter and I shared the futon and wept like my nine-month-old with a wet diaper.
But, basically, when it comes to family viewing, we’re more “Simpsons” than “Touched By an Angel.”
Airing Sunday night at 9 p.m., this two-hour CBS TV movie about race relations in the New South makes “Driving Miss Daisy” look like “New Jack City.”
Starring Louis Gossett Jr. and Gena Rowlands, it’s about a black, diabetic grandpa and a rich, white widow who take custody of their beautiful, mixed-race granddaughter, Jacey, after her parents die tragically — if conveniently — in an L.A. automobile accident.
Set in modern but staunchly Confederate Georgia, the drama explores whether the grandparents can overcome community prejudices — and their own — to bring up Miss Jacey.
On the typical family meter, no movie could be more correct. Schmaltzy, maybe, but definitely correct in its message of racial tolerance and its understanding of human frailty.
Despite its gloss, it has a good understanding of the racial grays that separate black from white. Of course, it’s always easier for Hollywood to address this issue when it’s finger-pointing south of the Mason-Dixon line.
As for sex, violence and profanity, the movie is achingly discreet.
Jacey’s parents’ death, while disturbing in a way that youngsters will empathize with, is never graphically portrayed.
The parental loss is no more difficult to take than “Bambi” or the typical Disney animated feature that lops off Mommy and Daddy before the opening credits (“Tarzan” for example).
But, as far as family viewing goes, “The Color of Love” fails in my household.
If the kids won’t sit still and my husband won’t pass me a Kleenex during it, it makes for awfully lonely viewing.