A Walk in the Clouds
In 1945, after World War II, United States Army Sgt. Paul Sutton returns to San Francisco to reunite with his wife, Betty, whom he married, following a whirlwind courtship, the day before he departed for the Pacific. The war has left him with emotional scars, and he experiences flashbacks on a regular basis. Paul's reunion with Betty is strained, especially after he discovers that, although he has written her “almost every day,” she stopped reading his letters after the first few, and keeps the hundreds of unopened envelopes in a footlocker. He is determined to make a go of the marriage, however, and hopes to establish a new career for himself. She insists he continue to sell chocolates door-to-door, and he sets off to Sacramento. En route, he meets fellow train passenger Victoria Aragon, a graduate student whose Mexican-American family owns a vineyard in the Napa Valley. When Victoria is accosted by two men on their bus to Sacramento, Paul intervenes and ends up beating up the men in self-defense. After all three men are kicked off the bus as a result, Paul finds a crying Victoria alone, further down the road. When he learns she is pregnant by her professor, Paul offers to introduce himself to her very traditionalist family as her husband. Victoria's father, Alberto, is infuriated, not only that she married a man below her social standing, but without his permission as well. Paul's initial plan to quietly slip away and continue on his journey, leaving her family to believe he abandoned her, is derailed when her grandfather, Don Pedro, encourages him to stay and help with the harvest. During the harvest, Paul (an orphan) grows closer to the family and learns the joys that come with their tradition, roots, and way of life. He and Victoria try to ignore their growing attraction and feelings for each other, but with little success. After a couple of days together, she finds the courage to ultimately come clean and reveal the truth to her family, further angering her father. Paul’s honor prompts him to attempt to salvage his marriage and return home, but when he does he discovers Betty is involved with another man. She has applied for an annulment, to which he happily agrees, and he returns to the Aragon estate to ask Victoria to marry him. When Paul returns, an argument with an angry and drunk Alberto leads to a disastrous fire which destroys the vineyard. However, Paul remembers one plant that may still have its roots intact, races off to retrieve it, and carries it to the family. The disaster, as well as Paul's bravery and dedication during it, has led to Alberto realizing his errors, and accepting Paul as one of his own, saying the roots of the plant are now officially Paul’s “roots.” Victoria and Paul seal their fate in the presence of the entire Aragon family, and all set out to replant and rebuild with the help of their newest member. The screenplay for the film was written by Robert Mark Kamen, Mark Miller, and Harvey Weitzman. It was based on the 1942 Italian film "Four Steps in the Clouds", written by Piero Tellini, Cesare Zavattini, and Vittorio de Benedetti. The film had a budget of $20 million. Principal photography took place on location among the wineries of Napa Valley and in the towns of Napa, St. Helena, and Sonoma. The Napa wineries included Mayacamas Vineyards and Mount Veeder Winery. The St. Helena wineries included Beringer Vineyards, the Redwood Cellar of the Charles Krug Winery, and the Duckhorn Vineyards. In Sonoma, the Haywood Vineyards was also used. Additional filming outside the Napa Valley region took place in San Pedro, the harbor to the south of Los Angeles. The wine festival scene was actually staged in the Large Courtyard of Pasadena City Hall in Pasadena, east of Los Angeles. The film score was written by Maurice Jarre, but included four songs by other composers: The film grossed $50,008,143 in the United States and Canada and $91 million worldwide. Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film four out of four stars, his highest rating, writing:
Mick LaSalle of the "San Francisco Chronicle" wrote:
On the other hand, Hal Hinson of "The Washington Post" called it "a phenomenally atrocious movie—so bad, in fact, that you might actually manage to squeeze a few laughs out of it... The film has the syrupy, Kodak magic-moment look of a Bo Derek movie, and pretty much the same level of substance. "
"Variety" described the film as "a glossy, fairy-tale romance that's longer on wishfulness than believability" and "a modest but sharply-mounted comedy/melodrama. "
As of January 2022, "A Walk in the Clouds" holds a rating of 46% on Rotten Tomatoes from 28 reviews with the consensus: ""A Walk in the Clouds" aims for sweeping period romance, but quickly unravels thanks to a miscast leading man and a story that relies on cheap melodrama. " Maurice Jarre won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score. Conversely, Reeves's performance in the film earned him a Golden Raspberry Award nomination for Worst Actor (also for "JM"), but lost to Pauly Shore for "Jury Duty". In recent interviews Debra Messing claimed she was tricked into signing a nudity waiver after being assured by the producers that no nudity scenes would be required because it was going to be a PG-13 movie, they couldn't show them anyway, nothing was going to happen and the director just had a big ego. She only learned on set that for the international release version those scenes nevertheless would be filmed. Asking the director about what angles would be shot since she wanted to be prepared, he told her that as an actress she had no right to ask about his shots and it was her job to get naked. Debra described this experience as sexual harassment which she only realized afterward since she thought it was part of the business at the time.
Plot
Along the way he meets a beautiful young woman who is heading home from college to her family vineyard to help with the grape harvest. When he learns she is pregnant and was abandoned by her boyfriend, he offers to stand in as her husband so she can face her Old World domineering father. During his stay at the vineyard, they fall in love and face the angry rejection of her father together.