Touched (1999) Reviews

Veteran Canadian filmmaker Mort Ransen follows the critical and commercial success of Margaret's Museum (1995) with this unusual romance between a young man and a much older woman in the backwaters of British Columbia. Carrie (Lynn Redgrave) is an aging, hard-drinking widow. Her estranged daughter Sylvie (Lolita Davidovich) is trying to sell Carrie's café, the locals are trying to kick Carrie out of her house, and Carrie's dead husband's friend Burt is making romantic advances on her. All seems bleak until a dashing young stranger named Shawn (Tygh Runyan) suddenly ingratiates himself into Carrie's house, life, and eventually her bed. Soon she awakens from her drunken tailspin and reaches out to her daughter. Though Shawn seems utterly unfazed by the 40-some year gulf between he and Carrie, he also proves to be deeply unbalanced. This film was screened at the 1999 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi