The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds Reviews

Joanne Woodward is superb in this film adaptation of Paul Zindel's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, directed for the screen by her husband, Paul Newman. Woodward plays an embittered and overbearing widow who is struggling to raise her two very different daughters, Ruth (Roberta Wallach, daughter of actors Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson) and Matilda (Nell Potts, Newman and Woodward's real-life daughter). Wallach is loud and outgoing, Potts withdrawn and shy. Woodward makes ends meet by boarding elderly people and making phone sales for a dance studio. She is spiteful and distrusting of all men, including Potts's science teacher (Spielberg), whom she accuses of endangering her child's life by exposing her to gamma rays in order to grow marigolds for a school project. The widow's bitter outlook on life and grim view of men slowly work their way into her daughters' consciousness, but the blooming marigolds become a symbol of hope for a less stunted life.