Seeds of Yesterday (film) (2024)

Seeds of Yesterday is a 2015 film that was produced by Lifetime and aired on April 12, 2015. It was adapted from the novel with the same name.

Plot[]

Thirteen years after If There Be Thorns, Cathy and Chris arrive at Foxworth Hall, which has been rebuilt by Bart, for his 25th birthday party. Bart has remained obsessed with Malcolm and has an estranged relationship with his mother and uncle due to their incestuous relationship, and even changes his last name to Foxworth to keep his distance from them. Jory and his wife, Melodie, arrive to announce she is pregnant with twins. Everyone but Bart is excited of the news, and Bart is jealous of Jory because he lusts for Melodie. The next day, Cindy arrives and bart welcomes her with contempt. At the birthday party, Jory and Cindy perform a ballet for the guests but Jory is injured in an accident that leaves him paralyzed from the waist down and ends his dance career. Melodie is distraught and says she cant live with a husband who cant dance and make love to her again. Cindy suspects that Bart is responsible for the incident due to him upgrading his insurance policy on the day of the accident. Bart denies this to Cathy and Chris, but they don't believe him.

As months pass, with Jory hospitalized and Melodie depressed, Bart takes advantage of her and seduces her. When Jory comes home, Corrine's will is read and Bart is enraged to learn he wont inherit the Foxworth estate until his 35th birthday, leaving Chris as the guardian of his money until then. Cathy finds out about Bart and Melodie's affair when she walks in on them having sex. Bart says Melodie loves him and points out that Malcolm was obsessed with his own mother until she abandoned him, and he says how much he hates seeing her with Chris. Cathy confronts Melodie, threatening to ruin her life if she doesn't start being there for Jory, especially after he attempts suicide by drowning in the pool. Melodie promises Jory to be more attentive to him but she attempts to continue her affair with Bart, who ultimately spurns her. Cindy brings a boyfriend, Lance, to meet the family but Bart beats him after he catches them having sex. Despite his hatred towards her, Bart starts to lust for Cindy. On Christmas Day, Bart deliberately confesses his affair with Melodie to Jory, and the shock causes her to go into labor. She gives birth to a boy and girl named Darren and Deirdre. However, she has no interest in them and Jory, and abruptly abandons them. Bart follows Cindy as she meets with another boyfriend at a bar, and confronts her on her way home in the woods and, in the heat of the moment, has sex with her. Cindy wants to start a relationship with Bart and admits she does have feelings for him (even admitting she knows about Cathy and Chris' secret) but he rejects her. Devastated, she returns to New York for school.

Chris decides to find a new house for Cathy, Jory, the twins, and himself after having enough of Bart's attitude. They hire a nanny, Toni, to take care of the twins. Bart starts pursuing her, which troubles Cathy because she was hoping Toni would end up with Jory. Bart later accuses Toni of being with him for his money and breaks up with her. Bart then forces everyone to attend a baptism for the twins at the Foxworth chapel and almost drowns Deirdre, causing Jory to threaten to kill him. Jory begs for Cathy to have Bart committed but she is reluctant. They instead decide to leave to get away from Bart, who has a mental breakdown. In a psychotic rage, he accuses Cathy of abandoning him for Chris and blames her for ruining the family. He is about to kill her with a dagger before he is stopped by Jory, and finally realizing it is hopeless to help him, Cathy decides to leave Bart for good. As he returns home after finding a house for them, Chris pulls over to help a stranded motorist and is struck by a truck, which kills him instantly.

Several hours pass before the police arrive to tell the family of Chris' death. This tragedy causes Bart to realize his wrongdoings and how he had pushed people away. He admits to Cindy that he loves her when she comes home for the funeral. Bart gives a moving eulogy at Chris' funeral and is thankful of Chris for raising him. In the climax, Cathy reveals that her children led successful lives away from Foxworth Hall. Jory is thriving in his recovery, has married Toni, and they are raising the twins and are expecting a child of their own. Bart had redeemed himself by becoming a televangelist and married Cindy, and together, they spread positive ministry around the world. However, Cathy decides to remain at Foxworth Hall as she mourns the loss of Chris. One day, she goes up to the attic, sits by a window, and, as she envisions yellow paper flowers, she dies of a broken heart.

Cast[]

Differences Between the Book and Film[]

• In the book, the setting takes place 15 years after If There be Thorns; in the film, its 13 years.
• In the book, Corrine's long lost brother, Joel, is the main antagonist and plays a main role; in the film, he doesn't exist.
• In the book, Bart's mental illness is not severe but he is easily gullible and manipulated by Joel into being like Malcolm; in the film, Bart's mental illness is deemed so dangerous to the point where he attempts to drown one of the twins in a hallucination and stab Cathy with a dagger during a breakdown. Also in the film, Bart blames Malcolm for making him do the awful things he did, evident of his delusional madness.
• In the book, Bart has a butler named Trevor who is the only employee he never fired and is the one who discovers Cathy's body in the attic at the end; in the film, Trevor doesn't exist.
• In the book, Chris became a doctor specializing in cancer treatment and his job required him to make frequent trips to Charlottesburg, and he got himself a part-time apartment for those trips; in the film, Chris retired from his job as a doctor.
• In the book, Cathy and Chris made plans to move to Hawaii after Bart's birthday party, but due to Jory's accident, they remained at Foxworth Hall; in the film, there is no mention of them moving to Hawaii and their visit was meant for Bart's birthday and they later chose to stay to help Jory recover.
• In the book, Bart graduated from Harvard law school but was unsure if he wanted to be a lawyer; in the film, there is no mention of this and his occupation is mainly in business.
• In the book, Melodie arrives at Foxworth Hall 2 months pregnant and didn't find out she was having twins until the birth; in the film, she was 4 months and knew it was twins.
• In the book, Cathy finds out about Bart and Melodie's affair when she sees Melodie leaving Bart's room wearing a negliee; in the film, she catches them having sex.
• In the book, Bart is heavily influenced by Corrine's long lost brother, Joel, about false facts about God and religion as a way to turn him against his family; in the film, Joel doesn't exist and Bart's behavior is due to his obsession with Malcolm.
• In the book, Cathy suspects that bart caused Jory's accident after learning of the accidental insurance policy he had on Jory and of his indifference of the accident, but this is unproven; in the film, it was Cindy who suspect him after overhearing him asking for an upgrade on the policy, which seems evident he was responsible.
• In the book, Bart despises Cindy and treats her with open hostility, but they later reconcile and work as brother-sister partners at his ministry; in the film, while he claims to despise her, he secretly lusts for Cindy and even has sex with her, and at the end, he realizes his love for her, marries her, and takes her as his partner in his ministry.
• In the book, the setting spans over two years; in the film, it spans over a few months.
• In the book, Jory is depressed over his disability but tries reconciling with Melodie as she withdraws from him; in the film, his depression caused him to attempt suicide and he didn't make serious attempts to get closer to Melodie.
• In the book, Melodie goes into labor in the middle of the night on Christmas Day, with only Cathy and Chris to help her; in the film, her labor was caused by Bart confessing to Jory about their affair, and the whole family was present for the birth during the day.
• In the book, Jory gave a painting to Bart as a Christmas present but Bart destroyed it because he considered it to be useless; in the film, Bart didn't destroy the painting and only deemed it useless.
• In the book, Jory became an artist at the end; in the film, he became a ballet teacher at the end.
• In the book, Melodie was forced by Cathy to care for the twins and left them after a couple of months; in the film, she refused to even hold the babies and left them a few days after their birth.
• In the book, Bart develops a relationship with Toni and starts to become more pleasant to his family, but this is ruined by Joel and Toni breaks up with him for his controlling behavior; in the film, Bart's treatment towards his family doesn't change when he dates Toni and he breaks up with her after accusing her of being after his money.
• In the book, Bart forced the family to attend a sermon at the family chapel, and then brought the twins to the chapel to pray for forgiveness for being the "devil's spawn"; in the film, he only brings the family (minus Cindy) to the chapel for a baptism for the twins and his hallucinations almost caused him to drown Deirdre.
• In the book, Chris is killed when he stopped to help a car accident victim and was struck down by a passing vehicle; in the film, he stopped to help a stranded motorist and was hit by a truck that lost control.
• In the book, Cathy goes up to the attic and decorates it with paper flowers before she dies; in the film, she doesn't decorate it with paper flowers but only envisions them.
• In the book, Cathy left a note in her grip after her death that said she left her final manuscript in her private fault for the family to use and she felt that Chris needed her the most; in the film, she didn't leave a note and never wrote any manuscripts.