The Learning Tree

The Learning Tree is a sentimental, sometimes awkward, but ultimately moving film about the growing-up of a black teenager in rural Kansas during the 1920s.

The restraint, the composure, the sufficiency of the sentimental gesture constitute a small gift for memory and a real victory in the first stages of this filmmaker's career.

Touching autobiographical story with brilliant cinematography.

It's conventional and rather toothless.

Written and produced by Gordon Parks, The Learning Tree meanders. It’s more slice of life than narrative-based.



"Layers are the real strength of 'The Learning Tree.'"

a compelling narrative that addresses the realities of black life in America within the familiar framework of a moving coming-of-age tale whose emotional peaks and valleys are the stuff of shared human experience to which anyone can relate

[The Learning Tree] is one of the finest movies you will ever have the pleasure of viewing. It is superior in every aspect; the photography is entrancing, the direction is sensitive and consistently excellent, the acting is thoroughly professional.

Does the film as a whole make it? It comes close. But in my view it just missed.

The Learning Tree gives the viewer breathing room, an opportunity to both take it in and leave it. And considering the film's subject matter, that is a sizable achievement.