75 Degrees in July [DVD] [2000]

The reunion of a dysfunctional Texas family provides the setting for this somber drama from first-time writer/director Hyatt Bass. Letty (Karen Sillas), a successful artist, returns home for the first time in several years. The ostensible purpose of her visit is to attend a posh gallery showing of her work, but her return quickly opens the gates for a flood of recriminations and long-suppressed resentment from various family members. Her sister Kay (Heidi Swedberg) resents Letty's success, something she finds hard to accept given her own long-ago abandonment of a promising career as a singer. Kay has instead opted to raise a family with Jed (William Moses), whom she constantly berates for being an employee of her father, the mean-spirited Rick (Harris Yulin). Kay and Letty's mother Jo Beth (Shirley Knight), meanwhile, is a control freak who constantly undermines her daughters' confidence and makes the most of any opportunity to remind Letty that her professional success has come at the expense of her ability to find a husband. As the drama further unfolds, it becomes clear that Letty and Jed were childhood sweethearts before Kay nabbed Jed from her sister, and that all the members of their family are far from resolving any of their problems with one another.~Rebecca Flint Marx