bigverybadtom Based on a real-life story, an old man who lives with his mentally handicapped daughter learns via a phone call about how his estranged brother had just suffered a stroke, and the man decides to see this brother to try to reconcile. Trouble is, the man has failing legs and eyesight and cannot drive a car there, so he buys a used riding mower and attaches a trailer to it, which he uses to drive hundreds of miles along the highways from Iowa to Wisconsin.The actors all perform realistically and credibly, and the depiction of rural America does not fall into crass stereotyping. We learn bits about the protagonist's life and what he had gone through and why he is doing what he does. We never know, until the very end, how things will turn out. And the movie does not ring false as it could have done.

Leofwine_draca THE STRAIGHT STORY is a film unlike anything else in David Lynch's body of work. It's a subtle, true-life tale about an old-timer who for various reasons decides to take a cross-country trip from Iowa to Wisconsin via his ride on lawnmower. Various adventures befall him and the film is largely made up of his quiet, introspective encounters with ordinary folk along the way. There is humour here but it's quiet and unforced, not loud and brash.This film is really the antithesis of the modern Hollywood film. There's no action, no character arcs, no big plot developments. Just a quiet sense of place and time and, most importantly of all, humanity. Richard Farnsworth was a former Hollywood stuntman dying of bone cancer during the production and his performance is heartfelt and heart-warming without ever being sentimental. It's a very well shot film that touches the heart in a unique way.

love-to-live-nrc In real life we just assumes that all people are selfish and don't spend time for helping others, but when i saw this movie the people who found by the old Alvin Straight's is just opposite which i thought of, they listen and care for him. You'd think it was a fantasy, this kindness of strangers, if the movie weren't based on a true story. Richard Farnsworth is just wonderful, a world of emotions conveyed in every detail of his face and expression. Straight (Richard Farnsworth) is a 73-year-old man from in Laurens, Iowa, who learns that his brother is dying and wants to see him one last time. His eyes are too bad to allow him to drive. He lives with his daughter Rose (Sissy Spacek), who is somewhat retarded and no good behind the wheel. Nor do they have a car. But they have a tractor-style lawn mower, and the moment Alvin's eyes light on it, he knows how he can drive the 300 miles to Mt. Zion, Wis. The first mower engine blows out, but he gets another one, a John Deere, hitches a little trailer to it, and stubbornly sets off down the road.

jazerbini Read the comments of Michel O'Neil in this IMDb site about this movie and would like to register it is exactly what I would like to say about it. Bye the way I see that Michel is from Boulder - Colorado, a city that is forever immortalized in song by the great Emmylou Harris, when he produced "Boulder To Birmingham" - a sublime moment in American music - a tribute to Gram Parsons, deceased, perhaps the greatest love of your life at that time (early 70s). I'm here in Brazil, thousands of miles away, but thanks to music and movies, I have all very close to me, in my heart. But I will talk about this wonderful film. Alvin's journey to review your brother, sick, piloting a small garden tractor, is something that hits bottom our hearts and minds. It is impossible not to be infected by the admirable spirit of Alvin. The stages of the journey are also steps to reflect. Alvin, demonstrating a huge detachment and an uncommon strength of character, embarks on a journey that is a true epic. In his small tractor is slowly going through a beautiful area, finding the most different people in their way. And Alvin influences the life of each of them, with their way of being, with its observations and with his charisma. But it is also affected by what he sees and the people with whom they live. It is undoubtedly a powerful film. It is one of the best and most touching films ever made, a true masterpiece of cinema, a time of great inspiration from David Lynch.