CHARMS FOR THE EASY LIFE

Share in the lives of three generations of remarkable women—from the turn-of-the-century through the 1940s—as the acclaimed novel by Kaye Gibbons comes to the screen with the same “charming, delightful, wonderfully peculiar” (Chicago Tribune) lust for life that made it a triumphant New York Times bestseller.

The North Carolina backwoods never saw the likes of Charlie Kate Birch (Gena Rowlands, Oscar nominee, Playing by Heart, A Woman Under the Influence). She’s a woman of “firsts”: the first to introduce indoor plumbing, the fist to walk out in the middle of Gone With the Wind, the first to practice herbal medicine, and the first to convince anyone within earshot that all men are born with the “nitwit” gene. Fiercely independent, she’s earned respect as a mid-wife. Abandoned by her husband, she’s made a good home for her daughter Sophia (Mimi Rogers, The Mirror Has Two Faces, Lost in Space), a woman reeling from a bad marriage and on the lookout for a good one, and Charlie’s intelligent, healthfully cynical granddaughter Margaret, (Susan May Pratt, 10 Things I Hate About You, Drive Me Crazy ).

As resourceful as the Birch women can be, and despite Charlie’s powerful charms to ward off human misery, life is still throwing them curves. Charlie’s husband has emerged from the dark with a startling proposition, Sophia’s met the catch of her (possible) dreams in a questionable lawyer stumbling out of his own marriage-gone-bad, and Margaret’s flipped head over heels for a young and handsome kindred spirit. Through first loves, lost loves, second chances, life, and death, Charlie’s more than prepared to weather the human storm that’s carried her and her family this far, and with faith, will carry them all toward a rewarding—and very charmed—future.

Directed by Joan Micklin Silver (In the Presence of Mine Enemies, Crossing Delancey), and adapted for the screen by Angela Shelton (Tumbleweeds), this RHI Entertainment presentation embodies all the exhilarating values it so radiantly and poignantly celebrates.