Roger Ebert Home

Sofia Coppola

Reviews

Priscilla (2023)
On the Rocks (2020)
The Beguiled (2017)
The Bling Ring (2013)
Somewhere (2010)

Blog Posts

Ebert Club

#401 March 2, 2021

Matt writes: "The first time I saw 'The Straight Story,' I focused on the foreground and liked it. The second time I focused on the background, too, and loved it. The movie isn't just about the old Alvin Straight's odyssey through the sleepy towns and rural districts of the Midwest, but about the people he finds to 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." These are the opening lines of Roger Ebert's four-star review of David Lynch's 1999 masterpiece, "The Straight Story," which was recently given a moving new analysis from our contributor Abby Olcese.