this film story initially appear to be a more or less typical come of age story of a teenage girl and set in the 50 at the height of the atomic bomb test age in the desert southwest and but end up be a sad and multi faceted story of unrealized potential and chronic physical pain and alcoholism and paranoia and abuse and spousal enabling and ruin family potential and and of a daughter loss of love and trust in her father due to the result of his very human and typical response to great pain . self medication by alcohol . that and plus another very typical male response by her father to excessive temptation by his wife sister who and without a care for the family unit and throw her many sexual charm at her drunk brother in law . weak a he be in all way he still respond and to great familial damage . just too many human flaw and life burden for any family to survive intact and and this one be no exception . there be some outstanding acting performance in history that i think have go outrageously unrewarded by oscar . a few be the 1956 portrayal of vincent van gogh by kirk douglas in lust for life and karen black in five easy piece and kevin kline in sophie choice and tim roth in rob roy and and jon voight in this film . when voight be on screen and i could not see anyone else . that define act greatness and and be the case with the other performance state . and and i find it very interest that 4 of these 5 role demonstrate an obvious form and level of mental illness . maybe all of them do . interesting point . if you have ever know anyone who be force to live with great chronic pain you may better understand the quality of voight performance and his very obvious pain result from severe wwii wound that he know would dog him mean every day of his tortured life . i know someone with that great pain and and voight performance be so spot on i could not believe that someone without that pain could portray it so realistically . you want to see truly great act . do yourself a favor and see jon voight in this film and get the rest of the well make story a a bonus .