''Northern Borders'' is a 2013 American drama film written and directed by

Jay Craven Jay Craven is a Vermont film director, screenwriter and former professor of film studies at Marlboro College. Craven is known for creating award-winning films on modest budgets, adopting many of the novels of author Howard Frank Mosher to film. ...

, and starring Bruce Dern,

Geneviève Bujold Geneviève Bujold (; born July 1, 1942) is a Canadian actress. For her portrayal of Anne Boleyn in the period drama film ''Anne of the Thousand Days'' (1969), Bujold received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Her other film cre ...

and Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick. It is based on the novel of the same name by Howard Frank Mosher.

Plot

In 1956, Austen Kittredge is sent to live with his conservative grandparents in Vermont. Austen Sr. and Abiah have lived together for 50 years but they won't even speak to each other directly and actually despise each other. Austen, called "Tut" by his Egypt-obsessed grandmother (the daughters are Nefertiti and Cleopatra), must do farm chores, even though he doesn't like the idea. Austen also goes to school and meets Theresa, whose family is very poor. In addition to dealing with the conflicts between his grandparents, Austen must deal with their efforts to overcome reluctance to join the modern world.

Cast

* Bruce Dern as Austen Kittredge Sr. *

as Abiah Kittredge * Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick as Austen Kittredge II *

Tom Bodett Thomas Edward Bodett ( ; born February 23, 1955) is an American author, voice actor, and radio personality, primarily as a host, correspondent and panelist for a number of shows that air on National Public Radio (NPR). Since 1986, he has been t ...

as Station Master *Samantha Cheirif as Bumper Stevens' Girlfriend *Brent Crawford as Rob * Rusty DeWees as Bumper Stevens * Jim Fitzpatrick as JW Kittredge * John Griesemer as Bailiff *

Jessica Hecht Jessica Hecht is an American actress and singer who played Gretchen Schwartz on ''Breaking Bad'', Susan Bunch on ''Friends'', and Carol on '' The Boys''. She has also made numerous Broadway appearances. Early life and education Hecht was born ...

as Liz Kittredge * Jacqueline Hennessy as Theresa Dubois *Alicia Hunt as Nefertiti *John Kiedaisch as Zack Barrows *Nettie Lane as Mrs. Dubois *

Mark Margolis Mark Margolis (; born November 26, 1939) is an American actor. He is known for playing Alberto "The Shadow" in '' Scarface'', Antonio Nappa in '' Oz'', and Hector Salamanca in ''Breaking Bad'' and '' Better Call Saul''. His performance in ''Break ...

as Whiskeyjack Kittredge *Tara O'Reilly as Nurse *Kaley Ronayne as Cleopatra *

John Rothman John Mahr Rothman (born June 3, 1949) is an American film, television, and stage actor. Life and career Rothman was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Elizabeth D. (née Davidson) and Donald N. Rothman, a lawyer. He is the brother of film ...

as Judge Allen *

Jay O. Sanders Jay Olcutt Sanders (born April 16, 1953) is an American film, theatre and television actor and playwright. He frequently appears in plays off-Broadway at The Public Theatre. Early life and education Sanders was born on April 16, 1953 in Austin, ...

as Agent Sanders *Irene Shamas as Hettie *

John Shea John Victor Shea III ( ; born April 14, 1949) is an American actor, film producer and stage director. His career began on Broadway theatre, Broadway where he starred in ''Yentl (play), Yentl,'' subsequently winning his first major award, the 1975 ...

as Doc Harrison *Karin Shearer as Mrs. Armstrong

Reception

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 40% based on five reviews, with an average rating of 6.08/10." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the film has a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

score of 44 out of 100, based on four critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Peter Keough of ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

'' wrote, "Craven's erratic tonal shifts from the whimsical to the sentimental trip up the episodic plot."

Neil Genzlinger Neil Genzlinger is an American playwright, editor, book reviewer, and theatre and television critic who frequently writes for ''The New York Times''. Family Genzlinger is a grandson of the late '' The Philadelphia Bulletin'' columnist Don Rose. ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' wrote, "The most interesting thing about the movie is its origin story."

References

External links

* * {{rotten-tomatoes, northern_borders 2013 films American drama films Films set in Vermont Films based on American novels 2010s English-language films 2010s American films