Benedict_Cumberbatch "The Year that Trembled" tells the tense story of young writer Casey Pedersen (former child actor Jonathan Brandis, who committed suicide one year after the movie was released) and his friends, who have to face the Vietnam Draft Lottery in the early 1970's.Based on a Scott Lax novel, "The Year that Trembled" has a compelling premise; however, the predominantly young cast isn't as convincing as in other Jay Craven's movies (veterans Henry Gibson and Fred Willard are always a pleasure to watch, though). Meredith Monroe, of "Dawson's Creek" fame, makes the best impression; she was pretty good in a brief appearance in the made-for-TV flick "Fathers and Sons" and has proved she's got talent. It's curious to see Danica McKellar (the cute girl from "The Wonder Years") in a small part. Although not the best Jay Craven film, "The Year that Trembled" has some inspired, sensitive moments and is worth a visit. My vote: 6.5/10.

Limeginger Important depiction of a time arguably as turbulent as our current. However, links (or even intimations of them) from past to present are lacking in this film. A faded standalone snapshot, the mood unimpassioned, (ironic given the manic, "trembling" tenor of those times). No room is made or left over for extrapolation or lessons learned--a great opportunity missed. Instead we're dished up startlingly superficial and hackneyed treatment of the era, ineffective character development, and lackluster performances from most of the cast. Further, the film is riddled with anachronisms and suffers from romanticism and historical revisionism--so it comes off as shallow and clichéd. Perhaps this film was made by people too young to understand the flavor of those times. If not, perhaps the filmmakers are part of a well-meaning but removed elite, who took their very best shot at depicting the lives and dramas of their characters, but the closest they could come was creating an approximated, somewhat patronizing, overly polite, "as-if" characterization--which naturally lacks passion, flow, human depth and complexity, and realism. In sum, it's like watching back to back episodes of the mundane NBC drama "American Dreams" (albeit, with a more liberal lean, fortunately), without the energy level. Just about that insightful, realistic, and compelling. In sum, clearly an earnest effort, tho emotionally blunted overall.

meadowlark Helen Gardner (Marin Hinkle) teaches at a high school near Kent State University. She is an activist against the war in Vietnam, as are some of her students. On May 4, 1970, they hear news of the shootings at Kent State. As a result of her activities, Helen is fired from her job. She marries a young aspiring lawyer (Jonathan M. Woodward) who throws his energy into a legal suit on behalf of those students who were shot. Four of Helen's senior students (Jonathan Brandis, Charlie Finn, Sean Nelson, and Lucas Ford) graduate and rent a farmhouse next door to their former teacher and her husband. We follow these people, as well as others they become involved with, for the next year as they stave off the law, protest the war, and try to make some beginning in life while facing the likelihood of being drafted and sent to Vietnam.The title comes from a poem from Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass"."YEAR that trembled and reel'd beneath me!/ Your summer wind was warm enough-yet the air I breathed froze me;/ A thick gloom fell through the sunshine and darken'd me;/ Must I change my triumphant songs? said I to myself;/ Must I indeed learn to chant the cold dirges of the baffled?/ And sullen hymns of defeat?"Jay Craven captures in drama the times and the concerns that "Hair" captured as a musical, as he focuses on one of the pivotal events of that time--the shooting of students at Kent State--and how that event and the war that spawned it, affected others in the surrounding communities. He skillfully interweaves stock footage of film and tv broadcasts from that period, with the fictional lives of some young people (and some old) who were closely connected with those events and were trying to figure out how to relate to a society that seemed to have lost its way. But the film is not abstractly political, keeping its attention on the personal concerns of the characters in all their ambivalence. Jonathan Brandis, in particular, brings a strong screen presence to his role as the point-of-view character in an ensemble cast, and Charlie Finn provides engaging comic relief as the goofy, but believable, Jim "Hairball" Morton. Henry Gibson, Fred Willard, and Martin Mull show the sympathetic–if not altogether trustworthy–other side of the generation gap that had split along some fault-line in time.The film is somewhat structurally unfocused in its early part. It took a while to get a sense of each character–longer than can be afforded in a feature film, I'd say. Hairball, for example, at first seemed simply awkward as an actor, rather than goofy as a character. Jay R. Ferguson was excellent in his crucial role, but could have gotten the same effect with less screen time. Others could have been given shorter shrift or perhaps no shrift at all.But once the film zeroes in on the main characters and plot events, it grabs your attention and hangs on.

robin_lewis To me, this agreeable independent film is exactly what movie making should be about. There is a lot of heart in this story about an introspective young man and his friends dealing with the effects of an unpopular war on their small town lives. The film adaptation of the novel "The Year that Trembled" craftily inundates the peaceful setting of a farmhouse in a meadow with all the passions of 1970 anti-Vietnam War activities ranging from the serious to the inane. Reel footage from the period is artfully infused into the film, as are new characters whose presence and values help explain the legal, political and emotional moods of the era to those unfamiliar with that time. The result was a film that, although choppy at times, was most enjoyable.The characters were all well played. The only disappointment for me was that the part played by Casey (the book's eloquent main character) was diminished in order to develop the other roles.