It’s never clear how an actor turned director will fair on the other side of the camera, but Sissy Spacek has to have learned a few things during her outstanding career. According to 24 Frames, Spacek will soon make that transition when she directs Sweet Tea. The script was written by Blood Diamond scribe C. Gaby Mitchell, and it based off of a novel by Julia Oliver called “Goodbye to the Buttermilk Sky.” According to the publisher, the 1994 novel “portrays a young wife’s increasingly dangerous infidelity with cinematic precision and palpable suspense. Soon, with only her housekeeper as a confidant, Callie breaks society’s rules about race and class as well as her marriage vows. The result is a chain of events that will lead to tragedy and a woman’s stunning decision about love, passion, and the future of her life.” It’s always encouraging when a printer throws in the word “cinematic” to describe a book about to be turned into a movie. The story also has an element of the supernatural, which is most likely part and parcel with the magical realism of the Southern tradition. Plus, there’s something great about seeing Spacek tackle a southern story that takes place during the Depression. Hopefully she’ll be able to translate her talents to the opposite end of the lens. Also, hopefully no one pours a bucket of pig’s blood on her when she’s about to call “Action!”

Normally I’d be selling you on how an ancient movie is still enjoyable today or that a modern audience can still be moved by pictures made over half a century ago, but I’m not so sure Song of the South really deserves all that much praise for its own artistic merit.