‘Journey’ Different From Usual TV Offerings

We can count on CBS to roll out one of its prestigious family-oriented made-for-TV movies early each December as the network’s yuletide gift to its audience. This year it’s called “Journey.”

Based on the novel by Patricia MacLachlan, whose “Sarah, Plain and Tall” was the basis of an earlier CBS movie classic, “Journey” is another celebration of family values - a lovingly crafted film under the aegis of the Hallmark Hall of Fame.

Be forewarned, though, that “Journey” is about as far from a conventional TV movie as a network can get. It has a slow, languid pace and an ending that’s likely to leave many viewers unfulfilled, yet it has texture, stylish flourishes and substance rarely found in the genre.

“Journey” is named for its title character, an 11-year-old boy whose reflections as an adult form the slim story line. Journey (Max Pomeranc) believes he was given that unusual name by his troubled mother, Min (Meg Tilly), because she was wishing him a life of restlessness like her own.

Journey lives with his single mom and his sister Cat (Eliza Dushku) in the rural home of his grandfather Marcus (Jason Robards) and grandmother Lottie (Brenda Fricker). In the opening minutes of the film, Min argues with her father for what turns out to be the last time - and concludes she has to leave to start her life over somewhere else.

But Min decides to leave her children behind with her parents until she can get established elsewhere. However, her skeptical father tells Journey not to expect Min to ever come back for him and his sister.

“Journey” is a film replete with symbols of family togetherness, especially the countless photos grandfather Marcus has taken of family members - photos which Min tears into hundreds of tiny pieces before she leaves home for good.

When we find the brokenhearted Journey trying to tape the jigsaw puzzle of those pictures back together again, it’s not hard to get the notion he’s trying to restore a family he now believes may be shattered for good.

But the point of “Journey” really is that a family doesn’t have to be perfect or complete to be warm and nurturing. The boy slowly comes to understand this as he puts the memory of his mother in perspective and gradually loses the resentment he has for the grandfather he blames for the family breakup.

Though the youngster is making his own journey toward understanding what really counts in a family, so is his grandfather. All his life, Marcus has photographed his family and decorated the walls of the house with the pictures in what may be a subconscious attempt to keep them together by keeping their images together in one place.

“I’ll get the camera” is his standard response for any occasion of even minor importance.

Along the way, Marcus also learns it takes more than tacking up photos to make a family stay together.