The Spitfire Grill (1996)

Lee David Zlotoff's sentimental tale about a troubled young woman who stirs up the residents of a small town in northern Maine is excessively earnest and melodramatically overplotted but leavened with fine acting by its principals. Alison Elliot stars as the new waitress at the Spitfire Grill, where she confuses the suspicious townspeople of Gilead by returning their gossip and animosity with kindness and goodwill. Zlotoff, who seems to have intended the film as a Capra-esque fable of human goodness, leaves the relationship of the apparently schizoid townfolk and this woman in a hopeless muddle. It's also rife with subplots involving everything from the woman's mysterious past to a contest to choose the new owner of the café, but none of them could matter less. However, the plot thread of the woman's bonding with restaurant owner Ellen Burstyn and withdrawn housewife Marcia Gay Harden, a scenario reminiscent of the superior Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), is the film's strongest element, mostly thanks to the superb acting of these three. It seems impossible to believe that protestors could have been disturbed by the film's nimbus of mild spirituality. ~ Michael Costello, All Movie Guide