Sommersby is a 1993 American romantic period drama film directed by Jon Amiel from a screenplay written by Nicholas Meyer and Sarah Kernochan, adapted from the historical account of the 16th century French peasant Martin Guerre. Based on the 1982 French film The Return of Martin Guerre, the film stars Richard Gere and Jodie Foster, with Bill Pullman, James Earl Jones, Clarice Taylor, Frankie Faison, and R. Lee Ermey in supporting roles. Set in the Reconstruction era following the American Civil War, the film depicts a farmer returning home from the war, with his wife beginning to suspect that the man is an impostor. Sommersby was released in the United States on February 5, 1993 by Warner Bros. The film received generally positive reviews from critics who praised the performances and chemistry of its lead actors as well as the musical score and was a box office success grossing over $140 million worldwide on a budget of $30 million. Plot John "Jack" Sommersby left his farm to fight in the American Civil War and is presumed dead after six years. Despite the hardship of working their farm in Vine Hill, Tennessee, his apparent widow Laurel is content in his absence, because Jack was an unpleasant and abusive husband. She makes remarriage plans with one of her neighbors, Orin Meacham, who has been helping her and her young son with the farmwork. One day, Jack seemingly returns with a change of heart. He is now kind and loving to Laurel and their young son, Rob. In the evenings, he reads to them from Homer's Iliad, which the old Jack would never have done. He claims that the book was given to him by a man he met in prison. Jack and Laurel rekindle their intimacy, which leads to Laurel becoming pregnant. Displaced from his courtship of Laurel, Meacham suspects Jack to be an impostor. The town shoemaker also finds that this man's foot is two sizes smaller than the last made for Sommersby before the war. Jack finds the local economy ruined, and his own land mortgaged and exhausted. To revive the economy, he suggests Burley tobacco as a cash crop. He persuades the townsfolk to pool their resources to buy seed, offering them to share-crop on his land, and to sell them their plots at a fair price once the mortgage is cleared. This raises further doubts in his old