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Baker's The Flamingo Rising Adapted for Television
Larry Baker's debut novel, The Flamingo Rising (1997), tells the story of the quirky and endearing Lee family -- Hubert Lee, his wife Edna, and their two children, adopted from Korea, Abraham and Louise. Hubert is wealthy, free-spirited, and impetuous, and has fulfilled his dream of opening the world's largest drive-in movie theatre on the coast of Florida. That his theatre is next door to a funeral parlor, the owner of which doesn't appreciate the noise and reveling that emanates from the big screen and its viewers, sets the stage for a world of conflicts in which Edna finds herself playing referee, and in which Abraham and Louise come of age.
The Flamingo Rising has now been adapted for television by the Hallmark Hall of Fame. With an able cast and Martha Coolidge directing Richard Russo's adaptation, Baker's themes -- faith, family, nurture, and the seeming opposition of life and death -- receive strong treatment. Despite the omissions and changes necessitated by the translation from print to television, fans of the novel will find that Baker's vision is largely intact. Viewers new to the story might very well find themselves wishing to spend more with this remarkable cast of characters, and they need only turn to the book.
As Hubert Lee and funeral director Turner Knight, Brian Benben and William Hurt encounter one another like opposite-poled magnets able to get just so close before the repelling action begins. Edna Lee, played by Elizabeth McGovern, provides a buffer zone between the two men. The line between Hubert and Turner -- the line between life and death -- blurs as the story progresses, and Edna becomes, ultimately, the agent of the eventual realization of their unavoidable coexistence. Edna is the heart of the novel, and of this adaptation, and McGovern exudes her character seemingly without effort.
When I first heard that The Flamingo Rising would be adapted by the Hallmark Hall of Fame, I have to admit I was surprised. The novel is perhaps more idiosyncratic, more tragicomic, than other Hallmark productions I have seen. While the novel understandably has more depth, the adaptation has kept a firm grip on the story's very considerable soul. And a soulful evening of television is not an easy thing to find these days. ---MW
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