‘Road’ a Sensitive, Multilayered Saga

Cicely Tyson stars in tonight’s USA movie, “The Road to Galveston,” and TV is the richer for it.

This strikingly expressive, three-time Emmy Award winner offers a multilayered portrayal of an undereducated, financially pressed Texas widow whose decision to take in three Alzheimer patients turns into an odyssey of spiritual renewal and self-discovery.

Tyson plays Jordan Roosevelt, let down by her beloved late husband’s failure to provide for her after his death, and by her unsentimental son (James McDaniel), who wants to sell the indebted family farm against her wishes.

Determined to hang onto it, Jordan is certified to care for people with Alzheimer’s, taking in three women: Gayle (Sallie Ellis), who’s in the last stages; Wanda (Piper Laurie), still mobile but out of touch with reality and given to occasional racial epithets; and Julia (Tess Harper), a professor of American literature forced to quit due to an early onset of the disease.

As human connections are made, no miracles are forthcoming, but even Wanda’s incessant babble becomes bearable. When Jordan, feeling control of her own life slipping out of her grasp, takes her three charges with her to fulfill her late husband’s dream of seeing the ocean, the result is a believable moment of grace and affirmation.

The cast is uniformly fine. The integrity of the performances is matched by Michael Toshiyauki Uno’s sensitive direction and by writer Tony Lee’s balance of pathos, humor, harshness and everyday humanity.

* “The Road to Galveston” airs at 9 tonight on USA cable.