Tender Mercies) on DVD

Great Performances
Frances / Plenty / Tender Mercies
Actors: Robert Duvall, Tess Harper, Jessica Lange, Meryl Streep, Sam Neill
Directors: Bruce Beresford, Fred Schepisi, Graeme Clifford
Genres: Drama

PG 2003 6hr 1min

Frances — Jessica Lange gives a career performance in a role she was born to play: the talented and troubled Frances Farmer. Farmer's awful trajectory travels from bright Seattle girl to 1930s Hollywood starlet to degraded... more » (eventually lobotomized) mental patient. Lange, who has the blond, clean look of Farmer's heyday, goes into these places with the fierce abandon of a true believer. Her performance, the lush John Barry score, and the period re-creation are all worth applauding; almost everything else fails. Everyone except Farmer is grotesquely caricatured to fit the movie's thesis, which is that if you are intelligent and nonconformist, the system will resolutely destroy you. (The medical establishment is evil incarnate.) This simple conclusion seems inadequate and disrespectful of Frances Farmer's tragic problems. For a radiant glimpse of what the real Farmer had to offer, see Howard Hawks's Come and Get It, which bristles with excitement over a new discovery. --Robert Horton Plenty

David Hare's Broadway play--about political idealism and the way some people always need to be fighting for a cause--was credibly transferred to the screen by director Fred Schepisi from Hare's screenplay. Meryl Streep (in the midst of a streak of movies that required accents) plays a British woman who fought for the French Resistance during World War II. When she returns to normal life in post-war England and marries a diplomat, she becomes something of a terror--speaking her mind when, of course, diplomacy dictates otherwise. Did she leave the best part of herself in France, where life was more meaningful and immediate? Hare's comment on Great Britain's post-war slide into Thatcherism, this film features a tough-minded (and not particularly likable) performance by Streep, who is actually quite good. It's a hard movie to embrace, but a well-made one nonetheless. --Marshall Fine Tender Mercies

Sometimes everything comes together in a movie and it becomes something so much greater than the sum of its parts that it can only be described as a miracle. That's the case with Tender Mercies, a quietly luminous character piece about an alcoholic, washed-up country singer named Mac Sledge (Robert Duvall in an Oscar-winning performance) who hits bottom in a motel room one night and then slowly finds his way back into the land of the living with the help of the widow (Tess Harper) and her young son. It's a low-key, contemplative film that feels like a rural American family comedy in the vein of the great Japanese director, Yasujiro Ozu. Tender Mercies was directed by Australian Bruce Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy, Breaker Morant), written by Horton Foote (To Kill a Mockingbird), who won an Oscar for his screenplay, and has an unbeatable cast. This is one of Duvall's most intimate and deeply personal performances, matched only by his debut 14 years later as actor-writer-director in The Apostle. --Jim Emerson

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Movie Details

Actors: Robert Duvall, Tess Harper, Jessica Lange, Meryl Streep, Sam Neill
Directors: Bruce Beresford, Fred Schepisi, Graeme Clifford
Creators: Christopher De Vore, David Hare, Eric Bergren, Horton Foote, Nicholas Kazan
Genres: Drama
Sub-Genres: Drama
Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
Format: DVD - Color,Widescreen,Anamorphic
DVD Release Date: 04/29/2003
Original Release Date: 09/20/1985
Theatrical Release Date: 09/20/1985
Release Year: 2003
Run Time: 6hr 1min
Screens: Color,Widescreen,Anamorphic
Number of Discs: 3
SwapaDVD Credits: 3
Total Copies: 0
Members Wishing: 0
Edition: Box set
MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Languages: English

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Member Movie Reviews

K. K. (GAMER)
Reviewed on 10/21/2017...

Tender Mercies - It was a bit slow and dated but a very good storyline and many well known actors and actresses when they were younger. Definitely worth a watch and a must for country star fans!

Frances - Not such a great start to this but then this true story started to grow on you with a female feel of one flew of the cuckoo's nest. Stay tuned for the ending since it has alot of extra details.