A River Runs Through It

The Montana scenery is beautiful, as is the filigree of cast flies over glistening rivers, and Brad Pitt is beautiful, as delivered by likewise beautiful director Robert Redford, but the emotions are muffled by a failure to connect, of the filmmakers as well as the characters, and consequently the film fails to satisfy in the end, despite being eminently watchable. Over-reliant on the voiceover of Norman Maclean’s memoir, read by Redford, the film manages to be both too explicit and inscrutable. The time and place are well rendered, but not the motivations of the characters. Even if this is a family in which things are left unsaid, the film should not leave so much hanging. (1992, dvd, r.) *6+*