Film

Tender Mercies (1982)

Director: Bruce Beresford

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

A real gem. As it tells of Duvall's drunken, down-on-his-luck country singer's slow road to redemption by way of an unromantic marriage to a Texan widow, Beresford's film (scripted by the admirable Horton Foote) offers an attractive if unassuming alternative to the Hollywood mainstream. Refusing to get into heavy plotting - the story's most dramatic event occurs off-screen - it relies on mood, gesture and observation to offer the unfashionable thesis that life, however hard or disappointing, is always worth living. Stunningly shot and performed (not least by Duvall, singing his own songs with conviction, as well as producing), it bears more resemblance to, say, the films of Wenders (or even, at a stretch, Ozu) than to commercial Hollywood, though it grips from start to finish. Beautiful.

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