If you like your films cheery and reassuring, you will be WILD ABOUT HARRY, an old-fashioned yarn set in 1973 on Cape Cod. The actual events sound more interesting than the film, but you will enjoy yourself if you can overlook the bad wigs, facial hair, and wonky regional accents.
Tate Donovan plays Harry Goodheart, a widower considered a 'real catch' when he moves to a small town on the water in 1973 with his teen daughters. He is an artist making American primitive art and furniture. The fact that his hunky business partner (Adam Pascal) lives in the back part of the property while cooking, eating, and spending all his time with the family might give some girls pause. But not these two, played with innocence and wonder by Danielle Savre and Skye McCole Bartusiak. Josh Peck and Corey Sevier are well cast as students enchanted by the new girls.
The town women are painted in broad strokes as either innocents or cougars as they ferret out the truth. But it is the high school students who cause the girls - still grieving over the loss of their mother – to face a new reality.
WILD ABOUT HARRY makes some excellent observations about small-town life in the 70s, where fear of being outed colors every moment. Gwen Wynne directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Mary Beth Fielder. It was released in 2008 but is now getting attention on Tubi.
You may not be WILD ABOUT HARRY, but you will probably enjoy spending the evening with this pair of talented woodworkers.
