DELIVERANCE OF ELAINE, THE

When Elaine Hodges (Mare Winningham) was only six years old, her world was torn apart by violence in the night. Her mother was killed and her father crippled by a shotgun-wielding intruder who then committed suicide. Now, twenty years later, Elaine still lives with and cares for her father (Lloyd Bridges) in her childhood home. Addison, a retired physician, confined to a wheelchair, is manipulative and abusive, punishing his daughter for his own bitterness.

One Sunday, Edna, a church friend, gives Elaine the address of a prison inmate, Charlie Skyler (Chris Cooper). As an act of charity, she begins a correspondence. Charlie is a career criminal; his letters are somehow disquieting and ominous. Elaine is terrified when he is paroled and comes to her town to live. She contacts her high school sweetheart, Tim Matthews, now the town’s police chief, who in turn pays Charlie a visit, ordering him to stay away. Elaine, he says, has suffered enough.

But Elaine’s suffering is precisely Charlie’s interest. Ignoring the warning, Charlie confronts a frightened Addison and tells Elaine that only the truth will free her from the past. But her questions to her father are angrily rebuffed.

Finally, Elaine learns what really happened on that tragic night long ago. The murderous intruder from her childhood, faceless for so long, was actually a woman — was, in fact, Charlie’s mother. Poor, sick, she had gone to Addison for treatment. He had taken advantage of her vulnerability, leaving her pregnant, then shunning her, starting a chain of disastrous consequences.

Shocked when her father admits the truth and blames everything on “the lunacy of a white trash whore,” Elaine’s anger grows into loathing. It is as if a curtain has been lifted. After years of caring for him, Elaine sees her father clearly for the first time.

The next day, Addison is found murdered. Charlie is the obvious suspect, but the police can find no evidence to support a charge. At Matthews’ suggestion, Elaine leaves her hometown, turning her back on the haunted past.