Sometimes you want a movie that doesn't demand everything from you. Something you can put on while folding clothes, answering emails, working on a
Sometimes you want a movie that doesn’t demand everything from you.
Something you can put on while folding clothes, answering emails, working on a project, cooking dinner, or finally dealing with that pile of papers that has been quietly judging you from across the room.
The Wishing Tree, starring Alfre Woodard, Blair Underwood and the wonderful Mary Alice, is one of those movies.
But don’t mistake gentle for empty. Underneath its fantasy and Southern storytelling is a beautiful question:
What happens when you become so busy building your life that you lose touch with some of the things that once made it yours?
What Is The Wishing Tree About?
Alfre Woodard plays Clara Collier, an accomplished Atlanta attorney who returns to her hometown after the death of her mother, Mattie.
Her mother was a storyteller.
And not merely somebody who could entertain a room.
Mattie’s stories carried history, memory, mystery and pieces of a world Clara has largely left behind.
Back home, Clara finds herself drawn into one particular local legend involving a mysterious figure known as the Magic Man. Blair Underwood plays Thomas, the mysterious man at the center of that unfolding story.
Soon Clara’s sensible adult world begins brushing against something harder to explain. Family history. Old stories.
Things remembered differently by different people.
Things we inherit without realizing we’ve inherited them.
And the possibility that what we dismiss as an old story may still have something to teach us.
The film originally premiered in 1999 and later aired on Showtime. It was directed by Ivan Passer and also stars Helen Shaver, Charles Weldon and others alongside Woodard, Underwood and Mary Alice.
Watch The Wishing Tree Full Movie
The full movie is currently available free on YouTube through the verified Shout! Studios channel.
Running time: About 1 hour and 35 minutes
Genre: Drama / Fantasy
Starring: Alfre Woodard, Blair Underwood, Mary Alice, Helen Shaver and Charles Weldon
This is an especially nice watch-while-you-work movie. You can certainly sit down and give it your full attention, but it is also the kind of dialogue-rich story you can enjoy while doing something else.
Why I Think Women May Enjoy This One
Clara isn’t presented as a woman whose life has amounted to nothing because she pursued success. She is educated. Accomplished. Capable.
But accomplishment doesn’t settle every question a human being will ever have.
Sometimes we can become very good at getting where we’re going without noticing everything we’ve left along the road.
Grief has a peculiar way of turning us around.
A death in the family can suddenly make an old recipe important. A voice you heard a thousand times becomes one you desperately wish you could hear once more. Some little saying that once made you roll your eyes becomes precious.
You start remembering things. You start asking questions. You finally understand why somebody kept telling you that story.
Clara’s return home opens that door.
5 Gentle Reminders I Took From The Wishing Tree
1. You are allowed to change without despising who you used to be.
Growth does not require contempt for your beginnings.
There may be pieces of your younger self that deserve another visit.
Not because everything behind you was better.
Because some of it was yours.
Affirmation: I can grow without becoming a stranger to myself.
2. The women before us were carrying information.
Sometimes it arrived as recipes.
Sometimes warnings.
Sometimes family sayings.
Sometimes stories repeated so often that everybody knew when to laugh before the funny part arrived.
Storytelling has long been one way families preserve knowledge when nobody is writing the official history down.
That becomes particularly meaningful in a story centered around a Black mother and daughter.
Everything valuable does not arrive with a citation at the bottom of the page.
Some things arrive through somebody saying:
Come here. Let me tell you something.
3. Grief can introduce you to someone you thought you already knew.
Losing someone can send us searching through their life.
We find photographs.
Letters.
Friends who knew another version of them.
Stories they never got around to telling us.
And sometimes we discover that our parents had whole interior lives that existed before we ever called them Mama or Daddy.
Affirmation: I give myself permission to learn new things about the people I have loved.
4. Going home doesn’t have to mean going backward.
There is a difference.
Returning to a place, memory or part of yourself does not erase everything you’ve accomplished since leaving it.
Sometimes you return because you finally have enough life behind you to understand what you couldn’t understand before.
You aren’t the same person walking through that old door.
That can be the whole point.
5. Finding your way home may have very little to do with geography.
The Los Angeles Times, reviewing the film when it aired on Showtime in 2000, described its characters as people lost in the woods trying to find their way home.
That idea stayed with me.
Because home can be a place.
But home can also be your voice.
Your creativity. Your faith. Your people.
Your boundaries. Your laughter.
The hobby you abandoned twenty years ago.
The version of yourself who wanted something before everybody else’s needs became louder.
Sometimes finding your way home means recognizing yourself again.
Affirmation: I am still allowed to return to the parts of myself I miss.
You are allowed to go back for the good things.
More From SurvivorAffirmations
If this movie spoke to you, continue here:
→ You’re Not Too Late for Your Own Life: What Artist Annie Lee’s Story Can Teach Us About Beginning Again
→ Lessons From Eve About Survival, Reinvention and Continuing Forward
About the Movie
The Wishing Tree stars Alfre Woodard as Clara Collier, with Mary Alice as her mother Mattie and Blair Underwood as Thomas, also known as the Magic Man. The fantasy drama was directed by Ivan Passer from a screenplay by Grant Scharbo.
The film is currently available as a full-length authorized upload from Shout! Studios on YouTube. Availability can change, so viewers should check the original source if the embedded video is no longer available.