Toronto Sun Article 9/7/96
Growing up with War At Home
Emilio Estevez has been favored with some of his dad's more notable characteristics. Martin Sheen's good looks would be one hand-me-down. Stubbornness might be another.
"I am indeed," says Estevez, admitting only to the latter.
To prove it, the actor and director got real willful for more than four years to make a movie version of James Duff's Broadway play, Homefront.
So what did his determination get him? Results. Estevez's emotionally charged The War At Home opened last night as a special presentation at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Estevez directs and stars in the profile of a Vietnam veteran who returns to his Texas home in 1972, outwardly healthy but crippled inside. The movie examines the impact of the breakdown on him and his family.
Tough stuff. But Estevez says he was ready for substance after the film fluff he's endured for "financial gain."
As another bonus, father Sheen agreed to play the dad. Kathy Bates portrays the mother. Kimberly Williams rounds out the cast as the sister.
Shot in Austin, Tex., on a paltry budget of $4.2 million, the picture was doubly demanding for Estevez. Even he admits the schedule was gruelling on his actor-director self.
But there was some consolation. "What son wouldn't like to tell his father where to go and what to do," jokes director Estevez.
Actually, Estevez, the director, the actor and the son, have great admiration for dad. "I knew he would be on fire, I knew he would just nail it," says son of father. "I think it was one of the driving forces to get this movie made -- to show that he is one of the best actors of his generation."
Last year, Estevez managed to do that by pulling something mildly subversive in the great tradition of father Sheen. The Disney studio, which made Mighty Ducks I and 2, also wanted a 3 with Estevez.
"I said I'd do it, but I wanted something in return," he says. That was two-thirds funding for The War At Home. He got it, along with a family trilogy.
"For some reason," says Estevez, "my family has found itself drawn to the Vietnam subject matter: My father with Apocalypse Now, Charlie (Sheen) with Platoon, and now me with The War At Home."
He's really not all that surprised. His father was active in the '60s anti-war movement, "and I grew up watching the war on the six o'clock news," says the 34 year old.
"But for me the Vietnam war in this movie is really a metaphor," he says.
The film might also represent the portrait of an artist as a maturing man.
Written by Bob Thompson for the Toronto Sun Newpaper 9/7/96.
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