[2] Piper Laurie won the Best Supporting Actress award from the Southeastern Film Critics Association for her performance.

[3] In a small 1930s Alabama town, Collin Fenwick is sent to live with his father's maiden cousins—the sweet Dolly and the overbearing Verena—following the death of his mother.

After also losing his father, Collin grows to be close with Dolly and housekeeper Catherine, and becomes acquainted with the eccentric townspeople, from the gossip-loving barber to a traveling evangelist with 15 illegitimate offspring.

[6] The New York Times review of the film states that the actors' performances were "uniformly expert, sharp renderings of distinctive individuals", and that Charles Matthau had "managed to set them in a landscape specifically distant and atmospheric".

[5] The Los Angeles Times review calls it a beguiling film, and one that "celebrates rebirth and renewal but within a tough-minded view of life that never allows it to lapse into a fairy tale".