As part of the "Travels & Travails" series:

Witness

1985, 112 minutes

The distance from the Amish townships in Lancaster County to Philadelphia may be 60 miles, but the gap between the two locations spans three centuries. In this film by Australian director Peter Weir, a young Amish boy (Lukas Haas) travels by train with his mother (Kelly McGillis) to a very urban and unfamiliar Philadelphia. Upon arrival, he witnesses a drug-deal that becomes a murder. Harrison Ford plays the investigating detective, who soon realizes that the crime was rooted deep within his own department and that the boy is in grave danger.

Ford flees the city with the mother and child back to Amish country, hoping to disappear into their off-the-grid culture. As Ford adjusts from a modern world to a traditional one, he finds not just respect and community but also love with the boy's mother--which would ultimately require one of them to leave everything they know to join the other.

BE ADVISED--This film is Rated R, with smoking, nudity, profanity, violence (including whacking) and not being careful among them English, resulting in späte-Stunde Rumshpringa.

Note that this week's film will be screened in the Community Room at the Weston Public Library's main branch.