sack with the money in it to the hermit. Hannah then reveals that the same hermit is Hannah's shell-shocked, Vietnam veteran son, Eli, who had returned home from the Vietnam War and isolated himself from society despite Hannah's best efforts to w in him back, including trying to sell the grill. Fearing that the posse will kill Eli, Hannah and Shelby rush to the sheriff's office and convince Percy to help them save Eli. Running through the woods with the posse on Eli's trail, Percy runs through the river to warn off Eli, although she is swept by the raging waters and killed, thus sacrificing her own life to save Hannah's son. Nahum finds Eli cradling Percy's body downriver and identifies him by his face. Percy's selfless act prompts the town's citizens to examine their own conduct towards her more deeply, especially at the funeral service for Percy where Nahum confesses to having caused her death unintentionally and finally admitting that he never truly knew her as he had assumed. Later in the summertime as Gilead is celebrating its town festival, a woman named Clare arrives with her son Charlie. Clare, having won the essay contest for the Spitfire Grill, is welcomed enthusiastically by the citizens of Gilead and Hannah shows her to her new home and business as a place for Clare and her son to start life anew. Cast Themes Overall, the film deals with powerful themes of redemption, hatred, compassion, independence, the economic problems of small towns, the plight of Vietnam War veterans, and, to some extent, female empowerment. The film somewhat misleads the audience into thinking that it will be Percy who finds redemption, but it is other characters and relationships, and indeed the town itself, that are powerfully redeemed through Percy's actions. Background The idea for the film was conceived by Malcolm Roger Courts, long-time director and CEO of Sacred Heart League, Inc., a Catholic nonprofit fundraising and communications organization based in Walls, Mississippi. In the late 1970s, he wished to make a film—an alternative to the ministry of print that was a hallmark of Sacred Heart League, which published and distributed millions of pieces of literature. With the approval and support of the league's board of directors, Courts began searching for a screenplay that could be produced under the direction of Sacred Heart League's film production subsidiary, Gregory Productions, Inc. Courts and his colleagues