This is the story of Hal Painter (Kevin Dobson), of his struggle to get the custody of his young son Mark (Justin Dana) after he loses his wife and little daughter in a car crash. Unlike his last name, Hal is a writer who needs to put his life together – move to California, get a job, buy a place to live, and so on. So he takes Mark to the boy’s maternal grandparents in Iowa to live with them until he is ready to return and take him home. However, the senior couple decides to keep Mark and claim that Hal is incapable of being a good parent.
While the movie deserves appreciation for realistic representation of relationships in a family going through a crisis, the grandparents’ characters appear underdeveloped and Mark’s life at their house is left out of the movie. The plot follows Hal’s character, limiting the audience’s exposure to and hence assessment of the other half of the tale. Far as visible in the conflict with Hal, Mark’s grandparents – the Bannisters – appear decent people with good morals and values, far from the image of the traditional antagonists.
Mark, I Love You by Gunnar Hellström is family drama, part of it courtroom, which ends on a positive note with a message of hope for otherwise inflexible and egoistic characters (people). It’s based on a real case that happened in the mid ‘60s. The screenplay is co-authored by real-life Hal W. Painter himself.
Mark, I Love You is recommended for the sake of those good old days of TV movies and for the reason that child custody battle remains an issue.
