Jeff Hephner Movies

This made-for-TV movie is a remake of the theatrical feature Conrack, using the original title of the source novel by Pat Conroy. Set in 1969, The Water Is Wide stars Jeff Hephner as Conroy, an idealistic young teacher whose first assignment is at a run-down school located on Yamacraw Island in South Carolina. The state's imperious school superintendent Henry Piedmont (Frank Langella) has written off the unkempt, illiterate black children of Yamacraw as thoroughly unteachable, while the school's authoritarian black principal Mrs. Brown (Alfre Woodard), evidently unwilling to buck the Anglo-Saxon establishment, insists that Conroy doggedly adhere to an established curriculum that has never worked with the students. Instead, Conroy utilizes compassion and humor as teaching tools, reaching out to his students through a variety of humanistic methods, including adopting the kids' own archaic Gullah dialect in order to teach them proper English. Not surprisingly, Mr. Piedmont and Mrs. Brown are dead set against Conroy's "radical" approach to teaching -- even when it is obviously working -- but fortunately, our hero has a strong ally in the form of deputy superintendent Bennington (James Murtaugh). Echoing elements from another Pat Conroy novel, The Great Santini, the young protagonist is plagued throughout the film by memories of his uncompromising Marine-officer father, who has instilled in Conroy a hatred (and fear) of all authority figures. Produced as part of CBS's Hallmark Hall of Fame series, The Water Is Wide was first broadcast on January 29, 2006. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Can a wealthy Republican politician find happiness with a chambermaid from the Bronx? One man is about to find out, though he hardly realizes it at first, in this romantic comedy from director Wayne Wang. Marisa Ventura (Jennifer Lopez) is a single mother who is raising her gifted but under-confident son Ty (Tyler Garcia Posey) on her own, with some help from her mother Veronica (Priscilla Lopez), after divorcing her husband. Marisa works as a housekeeper at the exclusive Beresford Hotel in Manhattan, where her boss Paula Burns (Frances Conroy) and chief butler Lionel Bloch (Bob Hoskins) urge Marisa and her best friend and fellow maid Stephanie (Marissa Matrone) to be as efficient and inconspicuous as possible. One day, while cleaning the room of noted socialite Caroline Lane (Natasha Richardson), Stephanie spies a beautiful designer gown and dares Marisa to try it on; against her better judgment, she does, and while all dolled up, she bumps into Christopher Marshall (Ralph Fiennes), a wealthy and well-bred bachelor who is running for the Senate. Immediately charmed, Chris asks Marisa to join him for a walk in Central Park, assuming she's the blue-blooded Caroline. Marisa manages to join Chris for the afternoon, with Ty in tow, and Chris finds himself quite taken with Marisa's beauty and down-to-earth personality, as well as Ty's precocious interest in politics. Chris later calls Caroline's room to set up a lunch date, but soon discovers the stuffy Ms. Lane is not the woman he met before. Marisa is also attracted to Chris, but while her friends encourage her to pursue a romance, Veronica believes her daughter is asking for trouble by trying to win a man so far out of her social strata. The supporting cast also includes Stanley Tucci and Amy Sedaris. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi