Like other reviewers, I was going to avoid this movie within the first few minutes because of its austere quality. Black and white, gritty, bare-boned filming and direction looking at awkward people in a strangely quiet way. <br /><br />A scraping by man that is one step away from Adam in implements scratching out a living suddenly comes by an ailing pregnant woman who he befriends and keeps alive by stretching the tight shoestring he's already living on, taut to its limit.<br /><br />But then, as the story unfolds, you realize it HAD to be shot in black and white; it had to have that raw, gritty quality. That's the nature of the story. That's the power of it.<br /><br />I agree, too, with other reviewers that if (as some of us have been theorizing) the woman and her child were written to be Black, that would bring several new levels of poignancy to every aspect of the film. And you can read that in as you watch and appreciate those nuances for yourself though they're not spelled out in the film. <br /><br />I also had the strange thought while watching of how great it would have been to have Johnny and June Carter Cash playing the leads, since this film was made in their heyday. But that's just me.<br /><br />Yet even as it is, this is a rare piece of coal that under the pressure of tough times shows itself to be a diamond. Not to be missed.