In 1999, one of the most unusual pairings in Hollywood history formed to make a film telling the story of Alvin Straight's odyssey: David Lynch and Walt Disney Pictures. Lynch, arguably one of film's more daring storytellers, the mind behind Eraserhead, Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks, is absolutely the very last filmmaker I would ever have believed to team with Disney, except perhaps David Cronenberg. His films often navigate the darkest waters of the human experience with an unflinching eye for images both disturbing and nightmarish, and so naturally the idea that he'd done a film for Disney, a G-rated film at that, I could scarcely believe it. And I absolutely had to see for myself what could come of this most unexpected collaboration.

The Straight Story opens with Alvin Straight (played to perfection by the late Richard Farnsworth, an actor and former stuntman whose career dated back to the 1930's), who lives in Iowa and has just learned that his estranged brother Lyle, who lives in Wisconsin, has suffered a stroke. Alvin decides that it's time to put their feud behind them and wants to visit his brother and make peace while there's still time. The problem is that Alvin no longer has a driver's license because of his failing eyesight, and his pride is too strong to allow someone to drive him or take a bus. So Alvin attaches a small trailer to his John Deere riding mower and sets off on an epic journey.

As with most road movies, much of the story is told through Alvin's encounters with people he meets along the course of his travels. Upon meeting a hitchhiking young runaway (who has a big secret she's scared to disclose to her parents), Alvin offers these words, remembering a lesson he would often give to children:

I'd give each one of 'em a stick, one for each one of 'em, then I'd say, "You break that." Course they could real easy. Then I'd say, 'Tie them sticks in a bundle and try to break that.' Course they couldn't. Then I'd say, "That bundle... that's family."

As the story progresses, it is through these seemingly random encounters that we learn more of Alvin's story, and how he came to be the man who is determined to complete this journey. Alvin Straight appears on the surface to be a fairly simple man, but just beneath the surface lies a different person: a man who has made mistakes and while he accepts responsibility for them, he is still haunted by the things he has done and seen over the course of a lifetime. Little by little, we are allowed to see the person inside and in doing so, we learn perhaps a little about ourselves as well. Alvin is a proud man, and yet he is the first to admit that his pride has cost him dearly over the years. He is not a perfect person, and it is clear that he struggles daily with his demons.

It is rare that a filmmaker has the confidence with actors and the trust in the audience to allow moments of quiet; moments in which the story, the emotions, and the story are told only by the actors, and yet this film is largely comprised of soft, quiet scenes that propel the story far better than any soundtrack or flashy camera tricks ever could. As Alvin grows ever closer to his destination, his encounters with strangers become more complex and in the process we learn of the heartbreak and devastation he has endured over the course of his life. In a way, Alvin's journey is one of redemption, and not only in regard to mending fences with his brother. In one incredible scene, Alvin recounts his experiences of a war many years past and I dare anyone who sees it to not shed a tear for the innocence that was brutally torn from him and the impact those nightmares still have upon him.

The film itself is paradoxical; on one hand, it is a simple film with a simple story and a small cast. On the other hand, however, it is an emotionally rich and complex film that, despite the G-rating, never panders to the audience, instead trusting that Alvin's odyssey is largely a voyage of the soul and that the truths to his humanity are so universal that there is simply no need to explain them.

In a time when so-called "family" films rely too heavily on weak stories supplanted by excessive effects work and toilet humor, The Straight Story stands high above all others, offering a story of quiet dignity, the power of perseverance, and in the hands of a truly amazing cast, it works flawlessly. And in the end we learn, as is often the case, that it is the journey and not the destination in which the greater truths are often found.