Susan Granger’s review of “SEA PEOPLE” (Showtime TV Family Movie)
On Sunday night, June 20th, at 9 P.M., Showtime presents this enchanting, original, made-for-TV movie, starring Fairfield’s own Hume Cronyn as a spry, old codger who’s not what he appears to be. 14 year-old Amanda (Tegan Moss) is a bit of a loner who lives with her family in a small coastal town in Nova Scotia. She trains as a long-distance swimmer and dreams of swimming the English Channel, like her heroine Gertrude Ederle. When the town’s main source of employment, the local cannery, closes, her father has to seek work in a town a hundred miles away. Feeling abandoned and hurt, she suddenly witnesses an elderly man (Cronyn) jumping off an inlet bridge. Attempting to save him, she dives into the bitterly cold water, only to be gruffly brushed off by the wiry man who calmly and quite competently swims to shore. Introducing himself as John MacRae, he takes the thoroughly chilled Amanda to his home to warm up and meet his wife (Joan Gregson). After visiting with the couple, Amanda becomes convinced that they are not human. They drink seaweed tea, eat algae, and sleep in giant tanks filled with icy salt water. They even refer to her and her family as “land people.” Could they possibly be related to the mermaids she’s heard about in stories? She even quizzes a school friend (Shawn Roberts) whose grandfather was supposedly rescued by a mermaid. As their friendship deepens, the MacRaes reveal their mysterious and magical relationship to the sea. And when John becomes ill, Amanda embarks on a quest of desperate ingenuity to save him. This is an unusually charming fable, a real winner that I highly recommend for family viewing. It will be repeated on 6/29 at 7:15 P.M., 7/3 at 4:45 P.M., 7/9 at 8 A.M. & 6:15 P.M., 7/19 at 6:15 P.M. and 7/25 at 4:35 P.M.