Movie Review: The Man In The Moon (1991)

Genre: Coming-of-Age Drama  

Director: Robert Mulligan  

Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Sam Waterston, Tess Harper, Gail Strickland, Jason London, Emily Warfield  

Running Time: 99 minutes  

Synopsis: The setting is rural Louisiana in the late 1950s. 14-year-old tomboy Dani (Reese Witherspoon) is growing up on a farm with her older sister Maureen (Emily Warfield) and their parents Matt and Abigail (Sam Waterston and Tess Harper). Dani likes to skinny dip at the local pond, where she meets 17-year-old Court (Jason London), the son of the widow Marie (Gail Strickland). Dani develops a crush on Court, and while he is interested, he also knows she is too young. A series of unexpected mishaps then shape Dani's transition to adulthood.

What Works Well: This old-fashioned and well-crafted coming-of-age story (written by Jenny Wingfield) combines the nostalgic innocence of simpler times with the joyous dizziness of first love, the responsibility for unintended consequences, and the devastating pain of experiencing loss. Reese Witherspoon (aged 14 in real life) sparkles in her debut, deploying a range of emotions and clever expressions to reveal the first draft of Dani the woman emerging from the shell of a girl. She is surrounded by several other well-drawn characters, including her father Matt, sister Maureen, and first love Court, who also experience their own complex emotional journeys.

What Does Not Work As Well: The burgeoning relationship between Dani and Court goes through some repetitive hot-and-cold beats. A few promising sub-plots are dangled then abandoned, including Maureen's boyfriend and his lecherous father, while the widow Marie has a backstory with Matt and an off-screen tragedy that are only mentioned in passing.

Key Quote:

Dani: You know...sometimes...I think nothing's ever gonna make sense again.

Maureen: Maybe life's not supposed to make sense.

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The Movies Of Tess Harper

All movies starring Tess Harper and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Tender Mercies (1983)

Silkwood (1983)

Crimes Of The Heart (1986)

Ishtar (1987)

The Man In The Moon (1991)

The Jackal (1997)

No Country For Old Men (2007)

Burden (2018)

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The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: Tender Mercies (1983)

The story of a has-been country singer who hits rock bottom and has the opportunity to start climbing back up, Tender Mercies is an affecting film with its heart firmly in honest territory.

Deep in rural Texas, washed-up and divorced former country music singer and songwriter Mac Sledge (Robert Duvall) lands at the ramshackle motel owned by single mom Rosa Lee (Tess Harper) and her young son Sonny (Allan Hubbard). Mac is broke and drinking heavily, but Rosa Lee offers him a few dollars in return for helping her with odd jobs and staying sober. He sticks around, they grow attached to each other, and get married.

Mac settles uneasily into a life of sober domesticity, but the passion to write music never quite leaves him. When his ex-wife and country music star Dixie Scott (Betty Buckley) arrives on a tour stop nearby, Mac tries to reconnect with her and their teenage daughter Sue Anne (Ellen Barkin). Dixie's manager and Mac's old friend Harry (Wilford Brimley) is sympathetic, but Dixie wants nothing to do with Mac. As word of Mac's new life starts to spread to his former fans, he is drawn back to the world of music.

Directed by Bruce Beresford and written by Horton Foote, Tender Mercies is a small film with a compact story told with simple elegance. Beresford dives deep into the characters of Mac Sledge and Rosa Lee, and creates two textured characters at the crossroads of life. The film enjoys plenty of quiet moments filled with the authentic desire of life-hardened adults to get better and benefit from well-earned scars.

Making excellent use of wide open Texas scenery, Tender Mercies is beautiful to look at, and Beresford often contrasts the immense landscapes with his vulnerable characters. In this terrain there is no option not to struggle; characters like Mac and Rosa Lee will succeed or fail according to their willingness to invest in the hard work of fighting for happiness.

The film weaves in themes of religion, redemption, missing bonds between fathers and children, and the turmoil of early marriages gone wrong. None of the messages are heavy handed. Rather, Beresford allows his characters to accept the luggage on their back while looking ahead, and the film generates momentum from finding decision points where the past is either repeated or built upon. However, not all the elements quite work, and most of the scenes with young Sonny and his school friends are quite creaky.

The prevailing calm tone is best exemplified in one pivotal scene. Upset by his inability to get past Dixie's hostility, Mac goes AWOL on Rosa Lee and Sonny. They anxiously wait for him to return as he manically drives around the backroads, debating whether to drink, flee or find his way back. Should he dare go back to Rosa Lee, her reaction could determine both their futures. He does return, and the welcome he receives says everything about two adults applying life's lessons towards the potential for a better tomorrow.

Robert Duvall finally earned his Best Actor Academy Award for his understated performance as Mac Sledge. Avoiding any excess of emotions, Duvall expresses a life full of regret and a future filled with dilemmas with quiet authority, Mac emerging as a believable man not running away from neither his flaws nor his dreams. In her feature film debut, Tess Harper is a revelation, matching Duvall and portraying the resourceful and independent woman who catches a plummeting soul and tries to reset him onto an even path.

Poignant and fully respectful of its culture, Tender Mercies is as melancholy as a heartfelt country music song.

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