Kim Smith's saga defies TV images of American family life

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Kim Smith's saga defies TV images of American family life

Monday, June 24, 2002

By JOHN LEVESQUE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER TELEVISION CRITIC

IN THE UTAH cemetery where Steve Smith lies, the carving on a stone bench reminds visitors: "Be of good cheer."

TV REVIEW

THE SMITH FAMILY

WHAT: 80-minute documentary about one family's struggle to stay together in the face of long odds

WHEN / WHERE: Tomorrow at 10 p.m., KCTS/9

RATING: TV-PG

GRADE: A-

For people of the Mormon faith, the advice is as familiar as breathing. For Steve Smith's survivors, it's as familiar as breathing underwater.

And yet at the end of "The Smith Family," which launches the new season of "P.O.V." documentaries on PBS tomorrow night, good cheer seems to sprout like the crocuses in Kim Smith's garden. It's nothing short of amazing, given the horrors Kim and her family have faced these past 15 years. Even more astonishing is the family's willingness to have it documented on film.

In 1987, on her ninth wedding anniversary, Kim Smith learned that Steve had been having sexual liaisons with men. Three years later she tested positive for HIV. The doctor, aware of the family's devout Mormon background, was sure it was a false reading. Kim knew better. Not long afterward, Steve had full-blown AIDS and the Smith family was living the great American nightmare.

Filmmaker Tasha Oldham met the Smiths while researching a film on Mormon women.

"I am a Mormon woman," Oldham says in an interview published on the "P.O.V." Web site (www.pbs.org/pov), "and I wanted to expand people's perceptions about who the Mormons really are, particularly their women. We are not all barefoot, pregnant, white, submissive women living in Utah."

Oldham originally figured Kim would be one of five women profiled.

"But after spending three days with the family," Oldham says, "it became clear to my entire crew that this family needed a film of their own."

So Oldham spent nearly three years with the Smiths -- Kim, Steve and their two sons -- and "The Smith Family," her directorial debut, is the result.

It's hard to call it a happy result, but "The Smith Family" is not a sad film. It's also not like other "P.O.V." productions, because it really doesn't take a point of view, even if Oldham's editing is resolutely favorable to her subject. Using no narration at all, Oldham lets us form our own opinions after watching Kim Smith forgive her husband's betrayal, supervise his AIDS treatment and hold her family together with more love and courage than you'd think one woman could muster.

"I was most drawn to the fact that this really could be any family," Oldham says in the Web-site interview. "It could be any religion, any city. Their personal circumstances were irrelevant. They are the Joneses. They had it all, they were living the American dream."

What makes the Smiths stand out, of course, is that their reality, unlike the reality TV chooses to portray these days, lacks the hostility and acrimony deemed necessary to hold viewer interest. Even as she worries that her selflessness may be motivated by selfishness, Kim Smith is an endlessly fascinating person: smart, articulate, philosophical, engaging, deeply in love.

That she could get past the anger and the hurt makes her better than many of us. That she could be so open about it makes her braver, certainly. That she could put the well-being of her sons first makes her a latter-day saint.

Still, Oldham's film leaves us free to see Kim Smith's choice as misguided lunacy, too. Kim's own parents were surprised by her decision. And the Mormon view of homosexuality, anything but accommodating, didn't make for an easy relationship with her church.

Oldham could have spent a little more time fleshing out the Smiths -- it's hard to get a fix on what Steve did for a living, for example -- but, as a slice of American life, "The Smith Family" is honest, sincere and inspiring. (Patrons of the Seattle International Film Festival seemed to agree: They recently voted "The Smith Family" second runner-up in balloting for best documentary.)

Oldham's own religion takes a few lumps in "The Smith Family." Again, she neither condemns nor condones, leaving it to viewers to take whatever they may from a touching tale of faith, hope and love.

John Levesque is the P-I's television critic. Call him at 206-448-8330 or send e-mail to tvguy@seattlepi.com

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