Review of The Country Doctor

This Griffith short is relatively straightforward, on the surface anyway: a country doctor has to tend to two girls who are bedridden and may be dying at the same time. One may live and one... well, you should watch it to find out that part. What stands out of course is the parallel editing, and the ending is somber and melodramatic, but the actors play the emotion without ever going over the top. I didn't get the 'metaphysical' panning shot part of it, showing the valley where the doctor lives at the start and the beginning. It doesn't add much to the drama of the story, and is Griffith's way of jamming in something spiritual, but the shots look exactly the same from the opening to the closing. We also don't get any sense of the doctor's family life before these two girls become sick, it just jumps right into this conflict of the story: will the doctor be able to save both girls. That makes for a good subject, and again the actors are all solid, but it's not great. There isn't much room for anything as far as changing up shots, it's all static and this only works to the benefit of near the end (to cut away from that would be unthinkable).