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RAMBLING ROSE – Elmer Bernstein
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Rambling Rose is a romantic drama period film directed by Martha Coolidge, based on the 1972 novel of the same name by Calder Willingham. The film is told in flashback by Buddy Hillyer (John Heard), who returns to his childhood home in Georgia and remembers his life growing up there during the Great Depression. Young Buddy (Lukas Haas) lives comfortably in a big house with his parents (Robert Duvall and Diane Ladd); however, everything is thrown into turmoil following the arrival of Rose (Laura Dern), an orphaned young woman who comes to work for the family. Rose is happy and free-spirited, but exceptionally promiscuous, and her sexual dalliances with several members of the family, as well as other people in town, brings all manner of troubles to the Hillyer family door. The film was a critical success that year, culminating in both Dern and Ladd – daughter and mother in real life – being nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, the first ever mother-daughter duo to be nominated for Oscars for the same film. Read more…