"Pictures of Hollis Wood," Dec. 2, CBS

NEW YORK (CNS) -- The venerable "Hallmark Hall of Fame" series begins its 57th season with a touching adaptation of Patricia Reilly Giff's Newbury Honor Award-winning "Pictures of Hollis Wood," Sunday, Dec. 2, 9-11 p.m. EST on CBS.

The story focuses on the 12-year-old title character, named for the locale in Queens, N.Y., where she was abandoned as a baby. We learn that Hollis, beautifully played by Jodelle Ferland, has been shuttled from one foster home to another, and when the film begins she is being taken by social worker Edna Reilly (Alfre Woodard) to her fifth: the home of retired teacher and artist Josie Cahill (Sissy Spacek), a gentle woman with a special empathy for children.

Hollis, as we learn from a series of flashbacks, had spent the summer with a sweet young couple, John and Izzy Regan (James Tupper and Julie Ann Emery), and their young son Steven (Ridge Canipe). The shy girl, at first untrusting, gradually opened up to them, especially when she learned that their lives were recently touched with tragedy: the death of their baby a year before.

The experience, which might naturally have led to adoption, somehow didn't work out, but we don't learn what actually happened with the Regans until the last minutes of the film.

Meanwhile, Hollis has taken a shine to the kind Josie (who, like the Regans, appreciates Hollis' genuine artistic talent), but it's clear almost from the start that Josie has serious memory problems, and when she packs a lunch for Hollis it's merely an unopened can of soup. But Hollis likes her so much that she does her best to cover for Josie's erratic behavior so Edna will allow her to remain.

Though Hollis has been a truant -- forging notes from Josie and making up excuses for not going to school -- when she's caught she promises Edna she'll buckle down. And sure enough, she's soon getting straight A's.

Josie introduces Hollis to her cousin and oldest friend, Beatrice (Judith Ivey), who runs the local movie theater and lets them in for free.

As Josie's condition worsens, Hollis finds she must take action.

The film -- smoothly directed by Tony Bill -- is done in the laid-back, soft-grained style of recent Hallmark presentations, a far cry from the sophisticated theatrical presentations directed by George Schaefer decades ago, but is nonetheless completely absorbing.

And Spacek's carefully modulated performance is as praiseworthy as any of the towering golden age performances of Julie Harris or Maurice Evans in those early days of Hallmark specials. She suggests the gradual clouding of Josie's mind to Alzheimer's with the lightest of touches.

Woodard and Ivey offer fine, sympathetic portrayals, while Tupper and Emery radiate genuine warmth in their more sketchily written roles.

The plot is predictable, but comfortingly so. The result is excellent family viewing.

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