Miss Lettie and Me (review)

Of the "curmudgeonly old woman learns the True Meaning of Life from an adorable child" variety, predictably stickily sentimental, and worse: It's set, shockingly, in a fantasy retro American South in which rich old women play mah-jongg and sip mint-flavored iced tea while cheerful black servants work the plantation and dish out deep philosophy, and used-to-be famous ballplayers return home to Main Street to open soda fountains. Annoyingly "spunky" little gal Travis (Holliston Coleman: Bless the Child) comes to stay with her great Aunt Lettie, whose lifelong embitterment is only exacerbated by that perpetually pained look of the overly plastic-surgeried on Mary Tyler Moore's (Flirting with Disaster) face. But sage groundskeeper Isaiah (Charles Robinson) and his wise mammy (Irma P. Hall: Bad Company) will help smooth the way to Lettie's heart. Choke on a big helping of Southern hoo-ha, with marshmallows.