I thought she died trying to get to where the brother was hiding out in the woods, and possibly get the money that he had inadvertently taken. The money was in the bags out behind the house, and his sister, the cafe owner usually left food for him there, in bags. The mean brother in law of the cafe owner was accusing the girl of having stolen from the cafe owner, assuming that everyone else would go along with him, and turn on her.
I don’t remember that at all. I do remember that she was trying to get Burstyn’s son to come in from the woods. Brustyn was the vet’s MOTHER, not his sister. She was of the WWII generation because the cafe was named by her late husband. As I said, it’s been nearly 15 years since I saw it.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Spitfire GrillAs I remember now, a number of townspeople are chasing her to find the hermit son, and she leads them away from him and falls into the river and drowns. Suicide? Accident? The plot is not clear, but the son comes in, is reunited with his mother, and attends her funeral which the town gives her.The Spitfire Grill is a 1996 American motion picture that tells a story of a woman who was just released from prison and goes to work in a small-town café known as The Spitfire Grill. A central theme is redemption.
The film stars Alison Elliott, Ellen Burstyn, Marcia Gay Harden, Will Patton, Kieran Mulroney, Gailard Sartain. It was written and directed by Lee David Zlotoff. The running time is 111 minutes. This film won the Audience award at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival, and several distributors entered a bidding war in response to the movie's positive buzz. When the movie was finally released, audience and critical response wasn't as positive as in Sundance.
Plot
The story centers on a young woman named Percy (Alison Elliott) who served prison time. Upon her release, she arrives in a small town in Maine with hopes of beginning a new life. She works as a waitress in the Spitfire Grill, owned by Hannah (Ellen Burstyn), whose gruff exterior conceals a kind heart and precious little tolerance for the grill's regular customers, who cast their suspicions on Percy's mysterious past. None are more suspicious than Nahum, Hannah's nephew, although his wife, Shelby, has a kinder curiosity.
When Hannah becomes bedridden due to a nasty fall, Percy and Shelby pitch in to save the Grill and win the approval of Hannah, who learns that she does need friends. Joe, an attractive young man in town, becomes smitten with Percy, and brings to town a scientist who thinks that the town's trees might cure cancer and arthritis. As the plot unfolds, Hannah holds a $100-per-entry essay contest to find a new owner for the grill. This creates a positive change in the town, but the plans are disrupted by Neham's suspicions and the revelation that a local hermit is really Hannah's shell-shocked Vietnam veteran son. Percy sacrifices her own life to save Hannah's son and prompts a number of characters in the town to consider their own conduct more deeply.
The film has a tremendous amount of Christian symbolism in it, mixed in with Celtic and small town, rustic charm. Percy can perhaps be seen as a Christ-like figure in the film. Overall, the film deals with powerful themes of redemption, hatred, compassion, independence, the economic problems of small towns, the plight of Vietnam War veterans and to some extent female empowerment. A "trick" of the film is that one initially expects the redemption to primarily be of Percy, but we in fact see other characters and relationships, and indeed the town itself, powerfully redeemed through the actions of Percy.
Background
The idea for the film was conceived by Roger M. Courts, long-time Director and CEO of Sacred Heart League, Inc., a Roman Catholic nonprofit fund raising and communications organization based in Walls, Mississippi. In the late 1970s, he wished to make a film --- an alternative to the ministry of print that was a hallmark of Sacred Heart League, which published and distributed millions of pieces of literature.
With the approval and support of the League's Board of Directors, Courts began searching for a screenplay that could be produced under the direction of Sacred Heart League's film production subsidiary, Gregory Productions, Inc. Courts and his colleagues read more than 200 prospective screenplays and found most of them lacking in Judeo-Christian values and good story-telling. In the early 1990s, Courts was introduced to Warren Stitt, who eventually became the Executive Producer of "The Spitfire Grill." Stitt knew of the work of Lee David Zlotoff of MacGuyver fame, and an introduction was made. Courts agreed to field screenplay treatments from Zlotoff, and in late 1994 the story of the film was written by Zlotoff alone.
With private financing from Sacred Heart League, the film was shot in Peacham, Vermont in 35 days in April-May, 1995. After editing the film, it was submitted to the Sundance Film Festival in the feature film competition, and was accepted for screening at the 1996 festival in Park City, Utah. Prior to screening at Sundance, Courts engaged composer James Horner to compose the musical score for the film.
With the three female stars in attendance at Sundance, Courts and his team enjoyed the support of an enthusiastic crowd during the festival screenings. During one sold-out festival screening, a representative of Castle Rock Entertainment viewed the film and contacted her superiors in Los Angeles. A second print of the film was sent by courier to the Castle Rock headquarters for screening by its executives, who promptly offered $10 million for the film's rights, the largest sum ever paid outright for an independent feature film.
On the heels of being sold to Castle Rock Entertainment, the film went on to win the Audience Award at Sundance. The film was then distributed world-wide with only a modest return and lukewarm critical reaction.
Profits from the sale of the film were used to construct a kindergarten through eighth grade school for 450 children in Southaven, Mississippi, located 10 miles from the Sacred Heart League headquarters in Walls. The school's cafeteria is named "The Spitfire Grill."
In 2001, a musical adaptation of the film with a brighter ending, written by Fred Alley and James Valcq premiered at George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, NJ, directed by David Saint and then moved to Playwrights Horizons Theater in New York.