Tender Mercies
Composite Score: 82.2
Starring: Robert Duvall, Tess Harper, Betty Buckley, Wilford Brimley, Ellen Barkin, Allan Hubbard, Paul Gleason, Norman Bennett, Rick Murray, Stephen Funchess, Glen Fleming, and James Aaron
Director: Bruce Beresford
Writer: Horton Foote
Genres: Drama, Music, Romance
MPAA Rating: PG
Box Office: $8.44 million worldwide
Why should you Watch This Film?
Tender Mercies tells the fictional story of a former country music star as he looks to move forward in his life, recovering from alcoholism, with the help of a single mother and her son, and hopefully reconnect with his own daughter in the process. It features an Academy Award-winning performance from Robert Duvall as Mac Sledge, supported by Tess Harper as Rosa Lee (his new wife), Betty Buckley as Dixie (his ex-wife and ex-music partner), Ellen Barkin as Sue Ann (his estranged daughter), and Allan Hubbard as Sonny (his stepson). The film’s simple story allows its audience to immediately relate to the characters and get drawn into the film’s setting in the process. A short, emotional, engrossing film – it is one that will stick with me for a while.
Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?
Though it won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay (mostly for the dialogue), the film’s story does occasionally move quicker than it feels like it should. Tender Mercies runs barely over 90 minutes with its credits included in that time, and I feel like it could have been about fifteen minutes longer and that much more impactful by offering a little bit more explanation or connection with the characters. Decisions are made quickly and some moments that feel fairly important to the story happen off-screen with brief references to their occurrences made in the dialogue. The film’s brevity might appeal to some, but I really liked this film and could have watched another fifteen or twenty minutes.
So wait, why should you Watch This Film?
Tender Mercies does a great job of capturing the essence of its story and setting. At its heart, the film is about country music and the change the genre underwent from the 1970s to the 1990s, told from the perspective of a former insider – who has some other issues to work through, which make the story work for non-country fans as well. It features everything you could want from a country music film, presented with fairly consistent authenticity – trucks, small towns, dance halls, opries, ex-wives, marriage, alcohol, dead husbands, aspiring artists, veteran artists, farming, catch, Texas, boots, cowboy hats, trucker hats, it’s all there. By shooting the film on location in small-town Texas (Palmer and Waxahachie to be specific), Beresford is able to make all of this occur quite naturally within the story, because it does occur naturally in that area. Watching it, I was hit with an immediate wave for nostalgia for my maternal grandparents’ house. My mom grew up in this area, and we visited quite a bit when I was a kid – that region east/south of Dallas that isn’t quite East Texas but also isn’t Waco or Dallas that is mostly just fields and farms and highways gets captured so well in this film.
Also, Duvall’s performance and the music help to fully sell the film. Though he never has a major “Oscar scene”, he consistently portrays a character that is different from what I have been used to from him in his more recent outings. His portrayal is intimate and invites the audience in and allows them to feel the characters desires and hurts and happiness throughout the film. Combined with that performance, the country and western music that plays throughout the film (no score, just music) creates an atmosphere of longing for both the future and the days past. There is hope and sadness present in equal parts in Tender Mercies, and together, they make a film that might capture the essence of country better than any other I have ever seen.
Tender Mercies is perhaps the quintessential country music film, combining original music with a deeply emotional performance and a very real-feeling setting to produce something that embodies country music (especially Texas country) as a genre, making the film’s place among the Greatest Films of All Time not much of a surprise at all. Though it might not run as long or dive as much into certain details of the story as some viewers might want, it is undoubtedly a great film, worth watching. If you want to check it out, you’ll have to rent it on Vudu or Apple TV or something similar, but I do recommend it.
