Review of A Promise to Carolyn

Whereas separately Delta Burke and Swoosie Kurtz play their parts reasonably well, they are as unlikely a pair of `sisters' you could imagine. Put together and considered as a whole directed by an imaginitive but lacklustre Jerry London, the sum of the parts would seem to exaggerate the worth of the whole. Certainly we must contend with a number of overacted scenes by both `sisters' as well as the step-mother of today and of forty years ago in flashbacks. Curiously it is precisely in the flashbacks to 1955 that provide the film with its best moments: the three little sisters were delightful, except obviously in the scenes of the step-mother thrashing out violence………. Scenes which were not too successfully handled. The story adheres too strongly to pre-established formulas such that the outcome is never in doubt, offers no surprise, simply another traditional rutinary telefilm trying too hard to evoke sympathies. I can only give this film 5 out of 10, I'll make it 5½ if you push me.