Having spent much of his unsuccessful Hollywood acting career as the personal assistant to diva Frances (René Ashton), Phillip Stalworth (writer/director Phillip Irwin Cooper) has just been rejected from yet another job for being too old to be a "southern Steve Carrell" when he learns that his mother Tina (Mariette Hartley, THE RETURN OF COUNT YORGA) has Stage Four Lung Cancer and wants him to come home to middle-of-nowhere Lower Fig Tree. While his bitter thrice-divorced sister "Sis" (Allison Elliott, THE WINGS OF THE DOVE) and gruff father Garrett (John Heard, CAT PEOPLE) seem content as usual to just endure the length of Tina's illness, Phillip is proactive and supportive of her decision to try non-traditional treatments. When she shows improvement with natural methods, she stops medical treatment and is determined to finally take life by the horns (having backed off out of fear from her goals several times throughout her life) even if it alienates her daughter and husband (who at first seems to have decided to mount the project of building the small fishing cabin by the lake out of spite for feeling ignored). With his mother seemingly on the mend, Phillip is able to explore nagging and long-suppressed desires when former high school acquaintance turned solitary home restorer Joe (Peter Stebbings) makes a move on him. Described in the promotional materials as "reminiscent of TERMS OF ENDEARMENT, as played between a mother and son," COUNTING FOR THUNDER is not so much a coming out story (this aspect is rather minor) as a late coming of age for its protagonist whose achievement of closure is a step towards a second chance at life. Cooper's broadly Southern accent is a bit cheesy at first in the opening narration in terms of delivery and the backwards cliches - although this tone-setting material is derived from his one man show - but he manages to etch out a sympathetic and insecure character when playing off his co-stars, and it is easy to overlook the solid supporting work by Heard, Elliott, and Valeri Ross (AND THE BAND PLAYED ON) for the more prominent work of Hartley and Stebbings. The mix of drama and comedy is rather lopsided, with a recurring bit where Phillip tries to jog backwards and blindfolded up the steep and winding drive to his family home not very organically worked into the storyline to give the rest of the drama a sense of framing.