Tender Mercies

Being a big fan of Robert Duvall I was glad to Tivo this. My wife and I watched this early one morning. Duvall who won Best Actor plays Mac Sledge a former Country Singer who wakes up in a small room at a gas station/hotel and finds his partner has left him behind. He eventually convinces the owner a young widow named Rosa Lee to let him work for his keep and as time passes they slowly develop a relationship that leads to his asking her to marry him.

Being fifteen years her junior she has a young son and the two develop a relationship. Eventually his ex wife a still successful country singer and her agent played by Betty Buckley and Wilford Brimley as well as his eighteen year old daughter played by Ellen Barkin.

I told my wife that not much happened in the movie but it was very enjoyable. One of the qualities of the movies was its strong sense of time and place, you feel like you are in Texas in the hill country perhaps best described by Robert Caro in his descriptions of the youth of LBJ.

A very good movie. Duvall is one of our better actors.