Sherman's March

As Mr. McElwee fusses with himself for not getting on with his meditation on Sherman's march, and as the loose ends of his private life accumulate, a wonderfully goofy, pertinent movie comes into focus.

In reconnecting us with the past, McElwee asks us to reconnect not only with each other but with our human spirit.

It’s a multilayered, funny, and consistently engaging film, with the people in it enjoying the filmmaker’s affectionate regard, as well as our own.

What Ross McElwee’s classic Sherman’s March offers is less a trenchant perspective on life in the Reagan-era American South than a rambling series of droll observations that accumulate into something more compelling than a self-portrait.

Two of the reasons to stick it out with McElwee for the film’s full 155 minutes is his genuine affection for these women, and the women themselves, who become a composite picture of the battiest and brightest of the early 1980s.

At epic length, the film's poor technical quality wears you out. But at its best, "Sherman's March" has a playfulness that can leave you giddy, and a kind of appropriateness that only an approach so obviously inappropriate can find.

It is extremely long, inconsequential and low-budget, but if you surrender to it, it is not devoid of delights and resources.