Tender Mercies movie review & film summary (1983)

How she finds that out, some young guys from town pull up in a band after one of them recognized Sledge. They tell Rosa Lee they have their own band, and are great admirers of Mac's. Word spreads around town. At the grocery store, a woman asks him, "Hey, mister, were you really Mac Sledge?" He's friendly enough: "Yes, ma'm, I guess I was." Was he keeping it a secret from Rosa Lee? I don't think so. It was not important to him any more. That was another lifetime.

They share some details. She was pregnant at 17, married at 18, a widow at 19, when her husband was killed in Vietnam. "He was only a boy," she tells Sonny. "But I think he would have grown up to be a good man." He was married to another c&w singer, Dixie Scott (Betty Buckley). The drinking ended that. There is a court order forbidding him to have contact with his daughter Sue Anne (a young Ellen Barkin), who is about 18 now. One day the kids in the band stop by and tell them Dixie will be appearing in town. Mac goes, not to see her, but in hopes of seeing his daughter. No chance of that.

We meet their old manager and friend, Harry (Wilford Brimley), who has that way about him of patiently explaining the truth, not unkindly. The story introduces some elements and we think we know how they will develop, such as the kids recording a new song Mac has written. It gets a lot of radio play, but the results are not what we'd expect. Life, unlike art, has a way of introducing elements that never do develop into anything.

Horton Foote won his second Academy Award for this screenplay. His first was for "To Kill a Mockingbird" (1962), for which he recommended Duvall for his first screen role, and he also wrote their wonderful "Tomorrow" in 1972. He died at 92 in March 2009. Above all a great playwright, he could hardly write a false note. The down-to-earth quality of his characters drew attention away from his minimalist storytelling; all the frills were stripped away. When interesting people have little to say, we watch the body language, listen to the notes in their voices. Rarely does a movie elaborate less and explain more than "Tender Mercies."

Bruce Beresford, born in Australia in 1940, had great success with "Breaker Morant" (1980). "Tender Mercies" (1983) was his first American film, and its five nominations included best director, picture, and original song. He room a chance on casting Tess Harper in her first movie, after discovering her at an open audition in Texas. As Janet Maslin pointed out, the movie's "endless and barren prairie" could be in Australia. Even the country singing would fit there. With the cinematographer Russell Boyd, Beresford maintains a certain tactful distance from some scenes, such as the marriage proposal. There are alternating close-ups, but the movie isn't punched up that way and prefers to see these people in the context of where they live.