If you like Robert Duvall and especially the character he played in Tender Mercies, you'll love this movie. Duvall produced Portrait, and his very talented wife directed (forgive me for forgetting her name blame it on my getting older). Duvall did Tender Mercies years ago, before Billy Joe Shaver went through so much personal loss, and if I didn't know the timing, I would have thought the Duvall plot and character were based on Shaver. I got to see BJ Shaver and his band perform and meet him, and he is the "real deal," as Duvall says. Shaver makes all those pretty boys coming off the assembly line in Nashville look like amateurs and poseurs - the ones Alan Jackson sings about in "Gone Country." He isn't bitter or envious as far as I can tell, and he shouldn't be, since he is in a class with Willie Nelson, and in fact, Willie says Shaver is one of his favorite poets and writers. The pretty boys are the ones who are probably envious.
Review of Portrait of Billy Joe
