Joe Leydon Film Critic“Death ends a life,” Robert Anderson noted in his 1968 play (and 1970 film adaptation) “I Never Sang for My Father,” “but it does not end a relationship, which struggles on the survivor’s mind, toward some resolution, which it may never find.” A truncated version of that memorable line — jettisoning everything after the word “relationship” — has been used, and abused, over the decades as a sentimental, one-size-fits-all aphorism to comfort the bereaved and sell greeting cards.
It is much to the credit of the people who made “Ride the Eagle,” a film that generously laces its sentimentality with clear-eyed intelligence, that they frankly acknowledge how difficult such a resolution might be, even as they earn a few good.
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