THE YEAR THAT TREMBLED

The tumultuous months from spring 1970 to spring 1971 irrevocably alter the lives of several Ohio young people, in a moving and elegaic adaption of the novel by local writer Scott Lax, and shot entirely on location with a stimulating mixture of screen newcomers like Meredith Monroe, Sean Nelson and Kiera Chaplin, and familiar faces like Fred Willard, Martin Mull and Henry Gibson. The threatening spectre of the Vietnam War draft lottery ? the one lottery nobody wanted to win ? looms over thoughtful, poetic Casey, idealistic lawyer Charlie, his teacher wife Helen, avid antiwar protester Judy, their hippie cohort Hairball, and other friends, family and allies in the pastoral town of Chestnut Falls. The shootings at nearby Kent State embroil Charlie in the torturous court case in the immediate aftermath of May 4; so intent is he on bringing those responsible to justice that he fails to perceive dangers closer to home. Casey, smarting after a too-candid admission by his lover Jennifer, looks elsewhere for solace as he fears the future. Judy's political demonstrations grow ever more extreme, as a law-enforcement trap begins to close. While Nixon, Agnew, Hendrix, King, Kennedy and Apollo 11 figure into this time period, THE YEAR THAT TREMBLED is less a sweeping historical pageant than an album of relationships, sweetness, innocence, irony and regret, here at the sunset of the Age of Aquarius.