Tender Mercies **** (1983, Robert Duvall, Tess Harper, Betty Buckley, Wilford Brimley, Ellen Barkin) – Classic Movie Review 5,399

The rousing 1983 drama film Tender Mercies swept Robert Duvall to a Best Actor Oscar as the washed-up, alcoholic former country music star Mac Sledge.

Director Bruce Beresford’s rousing 1983 drama film Tender Mercies swept Robert Duvall to a Best Actor Oscar and Horton Foote to a Best Original Screenplay Academy Award.

Duvall is superb as the alcoholic, once-famous country singer songwriter Mac Sledge, who wakes up one morning to find out that he has got a massive hangover and a debt to match.

Tess Harper also stars as pretty widowed bar owner Rosa Lee who allows Mac to work out his debt and gets him to rebuild his life as her husband with the help of his new young stepson, Sonny (Allan Hubbard).

Beresford’s gentle, minor-key film is an all-round quiet little winner, though it was also quiet at the box-office, despite the Oscars for Duvall and screenplay writer Foote plus three other nominations, including for Best Picture (Philip Hobel), Best Director and Best Original Song for the chief song, ‘Over You’ (by Austin Roberts, Bobby Hart).

Impressively, Duvall wrote and sang all his own songs.

Also in the cast are Betty Buckley, Wilford Brimley, Ellen Barkin, Paul Gleason, Lenny von Dohlen, Michael Crabtree, Norman Bennett and Andrew Scott Hollon.

Duvall also won a Golden Globe for Best Actor, tied with Tom Courtenay for The Dresser (1983).

The film was mainly shot in Waxahachie, Texas. 

It had a limited release on 4 March 1983, but was unsuccessful in cinemas, costing $7 million – $8 million and taking $8.4 million at the box office, a blow to UK’s EMI Films, who financed it. After poor reactions at test screenings, US distributor Universal Pictures put little effort and cash into publicising the film. Duvall blamed Universal’s lack of understanding of country music. Reportedly, Duvall clashed repeatedly with Beresford during production.

Horton Foote previously won a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), in which Duvall had his movie debut as Boo Radley, and Foote was Oscar nominated in the same category for The Trip to Bountiful (1985). Foote’s 1952 play The Chase was adapted as the 1966 film The Chase, in which Robert Duvall had a supporting role. Duvall starred in an adaptation of Foote’s 1968 play Tomorrow in the 1972 film Tomorrow.

Robert Duvall 

Robert Duvall (January 5, 1931 – February 15, 2026) received a Best Actor Oscar for Tender Mercies, a BAFTA Award, four Golden Globes, two Primetime Emmys, a Satellite Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. 

His other Oscar-nominated roles included The Godfather (1972), Apocalypse Now (1979), The Great Santini (1979), The Apostle (1997), A Civil Action (1998), and The Judge (2014). 

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5,399

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