Taglines: To a town with no future, comes a girl with a past.
The Spiritfire Grill centers on a young woman named Percy (Alison Elliott) who was recently released from prison. She arrives in a small town in Maine with hopes of beginning a new life. She lands a job as a waitress in the Spitfire Grill, owned by Hannah (Ellen Burstyn), whose gruff exterior conceals a kind heart and little tolerance for the grill’s regular customers who are suspicious of Percy’s mysterious past. None is more suspicious than Nahum, Hannah’s nephew, although his wife, Shelby, has a kinder curiosity.
When Hannah is bedridden after a nasty fall, Percy and Shelby pitch in to save the Grill and win the approval of Hannah, who learns she does need friends. Joe, an attractive young man in town, becomes smitten with Percy. He recruits 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 Nahum’s suspicions about Percy and the revelation that a local hermit is Hannah’s shell-shocked, Vietnam veteran son. Percy sacrifices her own life to save Hannah’s son and prompts a number of the town’s citizens to examine their own conduct more deeply.
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 was written and directed by Lee David Zlotoff and stars Alison Elliott, Ellen Burstyn, Marcia Gay Harden, Will Patton, Kieran Mulroney and Gailard Sartain.
The film won the Audience Award at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival, prompting several distributors to enter into a bidding war in response to the positive buzz, but when the movie was finally released, audiences and critics as a whole responded less favorably than they had at Sundance.
The Spiritfire Grill (1996)
Directed by: Lee David Zlotoff
Starring: Ellen Burstyn, Marcia Gay Harden, Alison Elliott, Will Patton, Kieran Mulroney, Gailard Sartain, John M. Jackson, Louise De Cormier, Ida Griesemer
Screenplay by: Lee David Zlotoff
Production Design by: Howard Cummings
Cinematography by: Robert Draper
Film Editing by: Margaret Goodspeed
Costume Design by: Louise Mingenbach
Set Decoration by: Larry Dias
Art Direction by: Peter Borck
Music by: James Horner
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for thematic elements.
Distributed by: Columbia Pictures
Release Date: August 23, 1996
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