The Long Way Home (1998)

Toward the end of his career as a well-recognized director of TV movies, Glenn Jordan gave audiences a gem that continues to warm and win hearts of those who value family and care. The Long Way Home stars an aging Jack Lemmon – the legendary Hollywood star – in the lead role of widower Thomas Gerrin, aka Tom, who loses his way one day while out with his family in Kansas and ends up going cross-country to California to see his old flame.

The movie’s plot takes Tom to cross paths with Leanne, a young woman in her early 20s, who is on the way back home to California after seeing her boyfriend. The two strike an unusual friendship in the spirit of freedom and together hitch-hike to the Golden State while Tom’s family report the old guy missing, kicking off a police search as well as soul-searching for responsibility and care.

The Long Way Home addresses a number of important issues related to aging parents; loneliness, memory lapses, dependency, and more. But the core issue highlighted in the movie is self-empowerment that comes from exercising one’s will. Tom represents every aging man, and woman, who hasn’t given up on the spirit of adventure in their twilight years. This urge for empowerment connects Leanne to an old man for a friend and the two relate to each other in a spirit-to-spirit bond.

Jack Lemmon’s acting doesn’t need praise. He always was at his best and being Tom in The Long Way Home is no different. Lemmon is also remembered as being inseparable from humor. So this movie has its moments and his lines and expressions that will bring smile at times, and tears too.

For parents, families, and believers in the good old values, this is a movie to fill your heart with love and care.

IMDb page: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0143436/