Places in the Heart (1984) User Reviews

Memorable Depression era tale of a rural Southern widow

[roghache · 8/10 · 15 March 2006]

This was a wonderful film which unfortunately I haven't seen for some years, so forget many of the subtleties. Sally Field is superb in the role of the Depression era Texas widow, Emma Spalding, and deserved her second Oscar which showed that yes, we really do like her. I always love this actress, who is especially compelling in the dramatic Norma Rae and charming in the romantic comedy, Murphy's Romance.

The film tells the tale of a good, kind, loving, and strong woman, the widow, Emma (who has been left with with two children to raise on her own) and the pair of disparate characters who help her to literally 'save the farm'...the black drifter, Moze, who plants her cotton, and the intriguing blind border, Mr. Will, that she is forced to take on to appease the nasty banker. Because of mortgage difficulties, Emma's farm and in fact, her life are always in the hands of the local bank manager. The unlikely bond between the trio (Emma, Moze, and Mr. Will) and their shared struggle is always the very heart of the film. There are, however, other local small town characters portrayed here, including a sub-plot revolving around a pair of married folk engaged in an adulterous affair.

It's all so much more meaningful than yet another film about a widow's romance. I don't know that the local couple's affair contributes much to the movie, unless, Hollywood style, there just had to be some sexual implications of some sort or other somewhere. Many others seem to agree that this sub-plot is superfluous.

The other major roles are well cast, with Danny Glover and John Malkovich sympathetically portraying respectively Moze and Mr. Wills. As for the man involved in the affair, Ed Harris (whom I actually kinda like) always does a brilliant job portraying any sort of somewhat sleazy character!

Memorable moments...One moving scene has lingered in my mind all these years, when the newly widowed Emma helps prepare the body of her sheriff husband, Royce, for burial. This is of course so alien to us today, when compared with our modern detached funeral parlors. There is an amazing tornado scene, wonderfully photographed, that brilliantly conveys the terror of the characters seeking shelter. Plenty of high drama there! The movie also has anti-racism themes, with a dramatic scenario involving some local Ku Klux Klan members or equivalent, in which Mr. Will plays a pivotal role. And a fabulous, touching scene where Emma dances at a community shindig with her young son, Frank. I recalled it vividly a few years later during a 'first dance' with my own son.

Certainly not an action flick, but a thoughtful, touching, heartwarming story with very sympathetic characters that will engage you and earn a place in YOUR heart. The movie has a quietly dramatic ending some have questioned, but I personally found it perfect. As another reviewer cleverly noted, it 'seals' the film.

A very nice surprise!

[bouncingoffwall · 8/10 · 30 September 2003]

Very good film in which Sally Fields portrays Edna, a character whose life turns upside down one evening. From one day to the next, she goes from being housewife to head of household. She is hounded by the bank, victimized, and even manipulated into taking in a boarder.

***POSSIBLE MINOR SPOILER*** This woman, though, is very courageous, and even uses for survival purposes the man who intended to victimize her and skip town. She is also kind and loving, coming to care for the would-be thief and pedantic boarder as if they were part of her family. They come to care for her, too, and all work together to ensure a better future, with mixed results.

Places in the Heart is about the place those whom you have loved and cared about in your life inhabit; a place very deep within your being. No one ever completely disappears from your life even though they be dead since they will always live on in your heart.

A remarkable movie from start to finish.

[Bi Ling · 7/10 · 3 September 2001]

I watched this movie because from the short synopsis on Sky's information page it sounded as though it would be a good one. Plus Sally Field and John Malkovich are two of my favourite actors.

And it was a good one. Not once throughout the course of the film did I find myself glancing at the clock in boredom. It's a remarkable movie from start to finish, although I must admit - the end scene somewhat confuses me.

The movie in short, a woman (Sally Field) is widowed and will be forced to sell her farm unless she can pay off the debts her husband left. The movie is set in 1935, and the woman takes the advice of a Negro traveller (played by Danny Glover) and sows acres of cotton. She also takes in a blind man (John Malkovich) as a border to make a few extra dollars. The events which follow are extremely well written, and excellently played by the chosen cast. Sally Field is the perfect choice for the role that she plays, as are Danny Glover and John Malkovich, who is ever so believable as a blind man.

I thoroughly enjoyed it and recommend it to others. If you enjoy heart-warming, touching stories, you'll definitely enjoy this one.

A fine movie with a breathtaking final scene

[Bill-308 · 31 January 1999]

This is a beautifully told story about life in a small Texas town during the Great Depression. Sally Field's husband dies and it's up to her to raise their children and harvest the cotton crop in time to save the farm. It's a fine story, but at the end, the film springs a surprise. Who'd have thought a movie could have a coda? The last scene of the movie is so powerful that when I left the theater I literally felt like my breath had been taken away. I suspect the scene is unique in the movies, and it affects me every time I see it. I've shown this film on videotape to friends a few times, and I always whisper, "Please don't say anything to me during this last scene." It never fails, though; my friends always begin jabbering away in astonishment right in the middle of the best scene in the movie. It's not a big problem, though. They always shut up in wonder and understanding just before the credits start to roll.

Our Own Blessed Assurance Of A Beautiful Garden Of Fellowship

[bkoganbing · 10/10 · 14 August 2007]

When Robert Benton wrote and directed Places in the Heart he created his own Citizen Kane. Like Orson Welles he will spend the rest of his life trying to better it and won't succeed.

Places in the Heart takes place in Waxahachie, Texas in 1935 and our director was born there in 1932. The film is a personal vision of his childhood in that small Texas town. It bears a whole lot of resemblance to To Kill a Mockingbird, except that the adult protagonist is not a widower lawyer, but the widowed wife of a sheriff left to fend for herself after her husband is killed.

Benton creates his characters with a loving hand, but that does not mean he doesn't see the flaws in the people there, the racism, the sexism, the hypocrisy and the pettiness. Field's husband, Ray Baker, is killed by a drunken black man accidentally. Killing a law enforcement official probably would have gotten him legally executed in any event, but the town administers its own brand of justice to the perpetrator.

That being said, it still doesn't solve the problem of a woman who has no education or training to support herself and her family. Sally gets the idea to grow cotton on the few acres her husband left her and gets a pair of strange allies in John Malkovich and Danny Glover to help her.

Glover is an itinerant hobo who is the one who if he knows anything knows cotton from his sharecropping background. He's who really holds the family together in the crisis. John Malkovich is a blind man whose brother-in-law is unctuous town banker, Lane Smith, who essentially dumps him on Field because he doesn't want to care for him. Malkovich who was nominated for Best Supporting Actor proves to be a faithful friend.

Lindsay Crouse was nominated for Best Supporting Actress as Field's sister. There's a subplot in the film involving her and her philandering husband Ed Harris.

Robert Benton won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and was nominated for Best Director and Sally Field won her second Oscar for Places in the Heart. Her character isn't as feisty as her first Oscar winner, Norma Rae, but Edna Spalding certainly has the same grit.

Period country and gospel music make up the soundtrack for Places in the Heart. Old line Protestant hymns Blessed Assurance begins the film and In The Garden is the theme for the surreal ending.

I can't describe the ending except that it is one of the most beautiful in the history of cinema. It's a vision of what promise we have either in heaven or a utopia we make on earth where the things that divide humankind are washed away and we are in fellowship with each other and our Maker.

You have to have a heart of diamond if you are not moved by Places in the Heart.

If you are undergoing personal challenges this is a good film to watch.

[lahabana51 · 10/10 · 29 January 2006]

At the time this film was released I was 20 years younger. I liked it but it did not stay in my memory of good movies to watch. I just saw it again today and could not leave my seat. Was it the story? Yes. Was it the acting? Yes. More than anything it was the situations that the characters faced. Art imitating life and doing a very good job of it.

What I liked most is that I did not think that the performances took away from the story. It's about how your life can change in a split second. Change in a way that challenges you to look at yourself deeply. It's about personal values. It is the type of story that moves me most these days. Stories about humans. It is a stunning film.

Faded a bit from my memories of it's 1st release, but still a strong film

[runamokprods · 7/10 · 28 January 2012]

I was sad to find I didn't love this as much as I had remembered from its release nearly 30 years ago.

The acting is terrific, and the film looks great. But the main plot has elements of familiar melodramatic clichés that bugged me more now in a way they didn't in 1984. The race to save the farm, and the 'we'll do it despite the odds!' dialogue felt a little too Hollywood this time around, as did the 'perfect' gallery of downtrodden, oppressed outsiders (the single mother, the African-American, the blind man).

At the same time, the subplot of the romantic triangle between Ed Harris, Lindsay Crouse and Amy Madigan, while wonderfully acted, really seemed to have very little at all to do with the rest of the film.

That said, all the acting (Sally Field, Danny Glover, John Malcovich) is terrific, and the details of time and place are rich and vivid is slightly (intentionally) softened by the haze of the passing years (Benton grew up in the town where the story takes place).

And that wonderful long last shot, which gives the whole film a larger context, is still a powerful and brave way to end a story.

One of the best American films

[nuntukamen · 10/10 · 24 July 2007]

POSSIBLE SPOILER This film is extraordinary simply because it is outstandingly written, directed and acted. During the closing scene, which perplexes some, I literally gasped out loud the first time that I saw it in a theater. At the time, I was writing reviews for an art/music magazine, and the experience was totally unexpected. I went five consecutive nights and took a different friend, parent, or family member each night. We discussed those closing images for months.

Every actor excels in accomplishment, even the minor ones, such as Lane Smith as the banker, Jay Patterson as Sheriff Royce Spaulding, and especially Ray Baker as W.E. Simmons, the ever-righteous and arrogant Klan member. These people are as memorable as those we meet and get to know in our own lives, and they stay with us through our lifetimes, just like Charles Foster kane, Elwood P. Dowd, and Scarlett O'Hara, and so many, many important others from the celluloid world. If they handed out Academy Awards for minor roles (why don't they; they give everyone else one?) all three of these actors would have won. Lindsay Crouse was nominated for Best Supporting actress, Sally Fields won Best Actress, and Robert Benton took the prize for Best Screenplay. It was also nominated for Best Costume Design, Best Director, and the Best Picture of the Year.

The scene of Edna Spaulding negotiating a price for her cotton with W.E. Simmons, the Klansman, who thinks he will bulldoze the poor widow for some extra profit, is a treasure all in and of itself.

The affair, also perplexing and out of place for many commentators, is essential; it truly cements in the viewers eye (and before the eye of the storm crashes in)how the pressure of small town life is closing in around the throat of Amy Madigan's character, Viola Kelsey, a pressure mostly created by her own choices. Her lover, Wayne Lomax (Ed Harris), husband to Edna Spaulding's (Sally Fields) sister (Lindsay Crouse), is just as frustrated, but far more self-destructing and willing to risk it all for what amounts to nothing, even as he dreams about it being more. The film shows the shedding of values and commitments for a little hankypanky that is just as destructive realistically as the tornado or the Klan. Maybe more so, which I think was the point of Benton's adding it as a subplot. Viola may blame the storm for her obsessive desire to get out of town, but the male characters and the audience know better.

Each character, such as John Malkovich's obsession with his precious records, has a special something they prize and hold onto, but eventually find valueless in the process of surviving with those around them. Danny Glover's Moze, though, is forced by the Klan to give up the most richly given gift in the movie; friendship and the comfort of a home that he loves, because he has been spiritually loved there.

The lethal tornado, outside of themselves and their decisions, is the only real monster in the lives of these good and hardworking Americans. The Depression is just a condition they live with. The bank and the banker (Lane Smith) make life tough while meaning to be helpful, but Edna Spaulding's determination is stronger than a vault of steel. Mother Nature provides the tornado, and the Klan provides the bad guy. Willy, the boy who shoots the sheriff, is actually his friend, or as much of one that a young black person could have been to a white sheriff in 1935 Texas. When he reappears in the communion scene that ends the film, so much is implied by his presence, and that of the deceased husband, that the true value of our lives and the things we share becomes explicit without a single word being said about it. My initial gasp was genuine, audible, and shocking to myself. This film is an artistic achievement rarely matched, and is on a personal list of the top 20 American films ever made. As stated, like any great film, the characters remain with you just like real people you have actually known. There isn't a weak moment of writing or acting in the entire film.

Perceptible look at life in the Depression 1930s with a portentous Sally Field

[ma-cortes · 7/10 · 10 November 2008]

This is an exquisite mood piece about the turbulent life of a widow set against mid-Western cotton farm at the turn of the great Depression 1930s , in which Sally Field won well-deserved Oscar for her magnificent acting and equally Robert Benton for his original script . It deals with a mother named Edna Spalding (Sally Field) of two sons is suddenly widowed to a sheriff (Ray Baker). Edna is persisted to survey facing the pressure by the bank to sell her farm . She fights her fateful fate along with an African-American (Danny Glover) and a blind (John Malkovich).

It's a sensitive and intimate look at hometown childhood , an affectionate film celebrating the spiritual force of the human will ; being based on records and memories well written by Robert Benton about his little town , Waxahachid , Texas . It takes part of a mini-cycle of farming movies that all debuted in 1984 . The films include Country (1984 ), The river (1984) and this one (1984). All three pictures were nominated that year for the Best Actress Academy Award with Sally Field winning the Oscar in that category for the latter beating out Jessica Lange and Sissy Spacek from the first two films respectively . Extraordinary performances from film stars , as this flick gave actress Sally Field her second and final to date , Academy Award and both in the Best Actress in a Leading Role category ; Field's first had been around five years earlier for Norma Rae (1979) in 1980 . Supporting cast is frankly magnificent , such as : Amy Madigan , Linsay Crouse , Terry O'Quinn but special mention for Danny Glover , Ed Harris and John Malkovich . Being one of numerous filmed collaborations of married actors Ed Harris and Amy Madigan.

Originally shown in lively colors by cameraman Nestor Almendros , Robert Benton's usual photographer , who previously won Oscar for ¨Days of heaven¨, though its visual beauty will be decreased on TV . The motion picture was very well directed by writer-director Robert Benton . This filmmaker and screenwriter, Robert Benton , set the film in his birthplace of Waxahachie , Texas in 1935, three years after he was born there . He's a films-dramas expert such as proved in ¨Human stain¨ , ¨Twilight¨ , ¨Still of the night¨ , ¨Billy Bathgate¨ and his greatest hit : ¨Kramer vs Kramer¨. Rating : Better than average, it's a great movie so well realized that is hard not to like .

One of my favorite all-time films

[jjh6519 · 10/10 · 29 February 2000]

This is the movie that gave Sally Field a much-deserved Oscar. This is also the film that gave Danny Glover and John Malcovich their first major exposure to the public. They are great in their respective supporting roles, sometimes making you laugh, other times wince with pain, other times empathize completely. See where they are now! The photography and music is perfect, especially the totally appropriate church songs. Set in a small central Texas town during the Depression, this film shows what a complete lie is perpetuated by "Gone With the Wind" and its depiction of the "happy cotton-picking slaves" prior to the Civil War. Edna Spaulding (Field), who has led a relatively sheltered life until tragedy suddenly strikes and uproots her entire family life as she has known it, must endure what the "happy" slaves once endured for years. And the final scene -- well, there is no way to say anything about it to keep from ruining it, other than: It comes totally unexpected. Roger Ebert didn't like it because it didn't fit with the rest of the movie. I couldn't disagree more. Roger often misses the point of a movie's ending. This is one scene that I could watch over and over, and it makes me tear up every time. At its core is a deeply held spiritual belief that transcends all other concerns. This is a must see movie! Make sure you see it with your kids!

'Tender' and redemptive; flawed, though reasonably well-acted

[moonspinner55 · 6/10 · 22 March 2007]

There are a few scenes in writer-director Robert Benton's "Places in the Heart" where Sally Field bats her eyes and smiles one of those private little shy smiles of hers that faintly scream "Adorable!" and one wonders if the other actresses nominated for an Oscar that year even stood a chance. Field is full of feisty gumption and resilience in this rural weeper, one tinged with regret and spiritual redemption. Texas widow with two young 'uns is struggling to make ends meet during the Depression after her husband is accidentally killed by a drunk juvenile. She takes in a blind boarder and learns from a drifter about raising cotton on her land, something she must do to save her home from being taken by the bank. Benton said his story was autobiographical; perhaps, but it is also commercial-cute and cozy when need be. Ultimately, it's been designed to show off its leading lady, and Field is given ample room to bloom. Her Edna Spalding is woman who learns to let her guard down and trust people again (but no one has trouble trusting her, she's that adorable). She's initially skeptical of Danny Glover's drifter, wary of John Malkovich's handicapped boarder, and seemingly indifferent to her sister's marriage problems (her husband's a cheat); however, when the chips are down and cotton needs to be picked under the blazing hot sun, everyone turns up for Edna. Benton believes whole-heartedly in neighbor-helping-neighbor--and, as the film closes, forgiveness being the key to Life. Seven Oscar nominations with two wins: Field for Best Actress and Benton for his original screenplay. **1/2 from ****

An exceptional film about hard times.

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 27 June 2017]

If you are looking for a film you'd describe as 'fun'....well, "Places in the Heart" is not the picture for you! However, it is still an exceptional film...lovingly made and well worth seeing.

The film is set during the Great Depression. A Texas man is senselessly killed...leaving his wife with bills and two children to feed. Her situation looks pretty hopeless and the bank is recommending that she send her kids to live with relatives or a Home...which she will NOT do. With the help of a homeless black man (Danny Glover) and an unwilling blind boarder (John Malkovich), she struggles against all the odds to make a go of it.

This is a very good film, filled with nice underplayed performances. My only quibble, and the reason I cannot give the film a 10, is that there is a subplot involving Ed Harris and Amy Madigan which simply has nothing to do with the rest of the film and is completely unnecessary. Still, you would have a hard time finding a better film from the era.

A wannabe inspiring drama capturing the mood of the Great Depression...

[ElMaruecan82 · 7/10 · 23 December 2020]

The poster proudly representing "Places in the Heart" on IMDb gives the wrong idea about the film; yes this is a story of a young widow trying to ensure a humble living to her two children in a depression-stricken rural Texas, facing financial difficulties, farming hardship and tornadoes. But the picture is just misleadingly grand and might make you think this is a melodrama on the epic and emotional scale of "The Color Purple".

Unfortunately for Michael Benton's recollection of childhood memories in Waxahachie, Texas, his darling project came close to being a movie as endearing as Spielberg's classic, it had the right material, the right premise, it even had Danny Glover. But somewhere Benton decided to include some subplots and storylines that didn't just affect the narrative but also prevented us from enjoying a far more interesting gallery of characters. At the end, what this film has in common with "The Color Purple" is the setting, Glover and an inclusion of AFI's 100 Most Inspiring Movies (guess which one is ranked higher?).

Now, I want to be provocative and ask: who needs the deadpan and killjoy face of a moody Amy Madigan when you have a young and seemingly frail Southern wife played by Sally Field, helped by Glover as a Depression drifter but experienced handyman who knows all the ropes about building and cotton picking and John Malkovich as a blind man lodged in exchange of money, much to the financial assurance of the local banker, his brother in law? With such a great trinity of characters, who needed a lousy infidelity subplot between Madigan and Ed Harris who plays the husband of Edna's sister Margaret, played by Lindsay Crouse. I wish I could overlook these points but they do affect the storyline, they do derail it from what could have been a wonderful immersion in a unique universe by the Depression's standards.

It is a shame because the story is wonderfully set-up, Edna's first scenes show her as the kind of devoted wives who couldn't dream of a better husband, a responsible fellow and good father who happens to be the town's sherif. I actually liked the cynical bit of that big hunk of a man being killed in a freak accident, shot by a drunken nerdy looking black kid. The film begins with a terrible sense of waste as the two end up dead (needless to say that a young black killing an officer in rural Texas wouldn't make it till court) and so Edna is left alone with the support of her sister and friends, and moderate pressure from the banker who advises her to sell the farm. And I actually liked that the banker wasn't the ruthless greedy type but actually tried to help Edna, out of respect for her husband or maybe because he was a genuinely caring man.

I like that the film does contradict many Depression tropes, giving it a realistic texture. Mozes isn't some guardian angel sent by the Devil, he's as capable of stealing silver spoons as Valjean for candelabras. The blind man wonderfully played by Malkovich (he'd be Oscar nominated for the role) isn't the nicest man but it doesn't take him long to warm up and bonds with Edna's daughter. Once these characters are established and Edna suggests they can plant acres and pick cotton as the prices were plummeting, the story picks up and we're taken to an extraordinary journey. But as if Benton didn't trust his own material, he swings us back and forth between the Spaulding farm and the anticlimactic romance between Harris and Madigan and thus preventing us from great interactions between Malkovich, Glover and Fields.

Don't get me wrong, the three do have great moments and seeing their relationships evolves is one of the film's great delight, but what would I have done for ten minutes of conversations between these three instead of anything between Harris and Madigan. The only actual pay-off of that subplot is the sister's reaction (Crouse was also Oscar-nominated) but was that worth it? Another option would have been to prepare us for an eventual intrusion of the Klan in order to make their involvement during the climax more plausible. I agree with what Ebert said that their appearance in the third act seems like they dropped out of nowhere and nothing prepared us for that. In fact, the tornado scene was so spectacular and impressively done it could have made a terrific climax on its own.

So, "Places in the Heart" is a powerful drama venturing in these unfamiliar territories where the strangest bonds can be made, set in a time of uncertainty in America where solidarity became a moral and spiritual creed driven or in spite of the social troubles that poisoned some souls. Yes the film delivers a powerful message tainted with religious spirituality and ending with a powerful finale that could have been one of the greatest of cinema's history: a collective communion between the dead, the living, the bad and the good in a sacred place where racism and hate has no bearing whatsoever. But I will quote Ebert again who said that this was a too grand finale for a film who lowered its expectations by diluting the story, and instead of being inspiring, it feels a little more manipulative or let's say, sentimental.

As a matter of fact, Ebert gave a dead-on review invoking exactly what was good and wrong in the film, and Siskel agreed by saying if the film didn't have bad scenes, it quite had pointless ones. It's a shame because the film had the material of a masterpiece but right now, it's most remembered for having earned an Oscar to Fields and that (in)famous "You like me... you really like me"... Yes, we like you, Mrs. Fields, I just wished Benton liked you enough to give you more screen-time.

Some strange choices, but still endearing

[blott2319-1 · 5/10 · 6 April 2021]

Places in the Heart feels like a film I've seen before. I'm familiar with stories where a tough-as-nails woman pulls herself up by her bootstraps and fights to support her family. I think Sally Field was perfect casting, because she can be the meek woman we meet early on in the film, but also transition into a strong character that holds her own against all the men around her. I also enjoyed what Danny Glover brought to the movie. He plays an endearing man that I thought fit the narrative of the film, even if he rides the line of being a clichéd "magical negro." I also liked John Malkovich as the blind man that is staying on the farm with everyone else. It felt like his character might go one direction, but I was pleased to find that he defied all my expectations. Frankly, with a trio of unlikely protagonists like these, it's hard not to root for them. Considering the fact that they're all underestimated by society for one reason or another, you instantly hope they will succeed. So, I was invested in the story even if it was familiar in all its themes.

I think where the movie threw me off was the amount of time and attention that is spent on a completely unrelated love triangle. It was downright confounding every time attention was pulled away from our heroes and their struggle to get by, in order to look in on Ed Harris and his affair. I kept thinking this messy B-story would eventually tie into the main plot and would have a purpose, but it was not meant to be. Instead, it's almost like a strange filler that was shoved in to push the movie closer to 2 hours. That whole nonsense should have been removed from the film, and it would have been better for it. Then they might have had more time for character development on the main characters, which could subsequently make Danny Glover pull further away from the trope I mentioned. The end of the film is also a puzzling anomaly, but I don't mind a little symbolic moment as the epilogue to a movie like Places of the Heart. It didn't fit all that well with the rest of the film, but it didn't break the story either. This is a perfectly fine movie, but not one that will inspire me to seek it out again.

Depression-Era Drama That Never Gets Old

[tfrizzell · 26 September 2000]

"Places in the Heart" is one of the more under-rated films of the 1980s. Somewhat based on director Robert Benton's experiences as a youth in Waxahachie, Texas, the film deals with one woman's (Sally Field in her second Oscar-winning performance) struggle to keep her land, house, and children after her husband is killed in a freak accident. She decides that the only way to keep her life is to grow and harvest cotton (not the easiest thing in the world to do, especially during the Depression). Drifter Danny Glover is the catalyst who can bring everything together and the blind John Malkovich (Oscar-nominated) also proves to be an asset. However, racists threaten to stop Field by eliminating Glover. On the other side of town Field's sister (Lindsay Crouse, in her Oscar-nominated role) is having troubles with her husband (Ed Harris). He is having an affair with a local school-teacher (Amy Madigan) and this development could ruin her life just as quickly as Field's life has changed. "Places in the Heart" benefits from great performances, but the direction and screenplay are also second-to-none. An excellent film that was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar in 1984. 5 stars out of 5.

Triumphant cinema

[gcd70 · 9/10 · 16 August 2007]

Scene after scene delights in this tale of tragedy and the strength of the human spirit. Writer-director Robert Benton handles the drama superbly and realistically (once again showing his expertise as he did with "Kramer vs. Kramer"); the cast members do likewise. "Places in the Heart" is a great tear-jerker that will also make you smile, many times. A must see film about human triumph over disaster.

Sally Field earned a well-deserved Oscar as she delivered a great performance along with Danny Glover as Moses and John Malkovich as Mr. Will. "Places in the Heart" was nominated for seven Oscars in total, including Best Picture. Along with Sally Field, Robert Benton got the nod for his fine original screenplay.

Tuesday, November 26, 1991 - Video

One of the best dramas of our time. This magnificent film never fails to stir the emotions. The whole cast is brilliant, as is Robert Benton's direction. Great cinema.

Monday, April 20, 1992 - Video

Places in the Heart (1984)

[robfollower · 8/10 · 22 April 2021]

Places in the Heart was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor for John Malkovich and Best Supporting Actress for Lindsay Crouse . And it won two awards - Best Original Screenplay for Benton and, of course, Best Actress for Field.

It was a strong well made drama that took place in Texas during the Depression in the mid 30s. Sally Field gave a powerful performance as Edna Spalding, a wife and mother of 2 kids who became widowed after a drunk accidentally shot her husband. She had also the chance of losing her home because she had no money to pay off the mortgage. So she decided to make some money by planting cotton. She took in a black man played by Danny Glover, who helped her plant the cotton, and a blind man played by John Malkovich. All the performances were top-notch. Sally Field was just great and for this performance she won her Oscar. Danny Glover and John Malkovich give strong supporting performances.

Places in the Heart is a moving portrait of a specific time in American history. Injustice, prejudice, and discrimination are major themes of this story, as well as friendship acts of courage and commitment . Very entertaining , Oscar-winning period piece.

Good movie with wholesome values

[HotToastyRag · 7/10 · 22 October 2021]

While I'll be the first to criticize Norma Rae, Sally Field's second Academy Award for Places in the Heart wasn't nearly as infuriating. For one reason, it's actually a good movie! For another, she has much more to do than just hold up a picket sign. She puts on a southern accent, fights for her farm against the weather, and stands up to bullying neighbors while raising children alone after her husband is killed. If you like these kinds of movies but 1984 was before your time, rent it for movie night with your friends. Bring along a bottle of champagne to pop afterwards and say, "You like me! You really like me!"

A big supporting cast joins Sally on her family farm. John Malkovich, in my favorite of his performances, plays a blind man she takes into her home as a boarder. What starts as charity turns into much more as he proves to be much more useful than anyone suspected. Danny Glover's character is also full of surprises. He's a farmer who comes to her door asking for work, but because it's Texas in the 1930s, she turns him away. He doesn't leave, though, and she finds him in the morning planting seeds in her dozens of acres. Lane Smith is the fast-talking fellow constantly urging her to sell her land and give up. And in an adorable trivia, Ed Harris and Amy Madigan got married after making this movie together - and they're still happily married today!

Even if you don't like Sally Field, you'll be able to suffer through this movie. It has all the drama, sentiment, good values, and heart that it needs to make you feel connected and invested. While you can probably picture Sissy Spacek, Jessica Lange, or Glenn Close as better choices for the lead role, Sally does have the doe-eyed child look to her face that makes you wonder if she'll make it through or just collapse in a heap and ask her parents to take over. All in all, it's a good movie, so give it (and her) a chance.

A thoughtful quote from Robert Benton

[rwchapman01 · 10/10 · 7 April 2006]

Just a suggestion for "memorable quotes":

During the film, while the Spaulding kids are trying Malkovich's player, I believe, a brief excerpt from "Trent's Last Case" is heard. Within it is a major, if not the major, theme of the film. I think you should include it among your memorable quotes:

"Between what matters and what seems to matter, how will the world we know choose wisely?"

Most of the film involves characters making choices, many of them difficult, some of them life-threatening. These choices are put into startling relief by the ending sequence of the movie. Although it would be a disservice to summarize Benton's story as just a parable for our times, his comment about choices is extremely thought-provoking.

It is a challenging question for all of us.

Rick

My brief review of the film

[sol- · 6/10 · 18 November 2005]

Sally Field won an Academy Award for her performance here, but it is John Malkovich who is the real stand out of the film - he plays a blind man very convincingly. The film itself is fairly well made, if perhaps not deserving of all the attention that it received at the time. Racism and difficult living issues are explored well, but it is all a little too grim, the characters are not easy to like, and it is predictable to a degree. However, none of these problems are the major downfall of the film. The main problem I had with it was the way it juggled two story lines. The Ed Harris and Lindsay Crouse subplot is nothing out of the ordinary, and it adds nothing to the film, except to act as a distraction to the central drama involving Sally Field. It is not a bad film though, and it has by all means an interesting ending. It is worth a look.

THE Most Under-Rated Movie of All Time

[Natalie-31 · 10/10 · 15 November 2002]

This is a great film, in my personal top ten of all time. I know several people who did not like the ending, the affair, the title. All I can say is you have to think about this one. It's not trite nonsense like "A Beautiful Mind." When the ending arrives, think about what it means to love and forgive. Think about people in your life that have left for one reason or another. Think about where it is that those people that affected you still exist (hence the brilliant title and ending). When I saw this film in the theater, I was so stunned by the ending that I couldn't speak. I didn't just cry. I burst into tears. It is so touching and relevant to the themes of the whole movie--forgiveness, love, brotherhood. I have zero respect for the AFI and any other silly list makers when they leave PLACES IN THE HEART out of their top 100 or 200.

Touchingly rendered, straight forward dramatic film about the Depression

[secondtake · 7/10 · 30 June 2017]

Places of the Heart (1984)

A strong melodrama set in Depression Texas, and starring a wonderful Sally Field as the matriarch of a farming family. The plot follows some heartwarming paths that we've seen before, but with Danny Glover and Ed Harris helping in smaller roles, and a generally strong cast, the feeling of being on this old farm is believable. The bank threatens, racism raises its head, and the sky opens up its wrath.

All of this is just a matter of perseverance for this family. Eventually some cotton is grown, and a race to be first in with the crop leads to a hot and harrowing final few scenes.

Director and writer Robert Benton is returning to his own roots for this movie—it's set in his home town, though he was only three when these events are set. It feels like a romanticized autobiographical tale, something seen from a kid's point of view. The tacked on affair by Ed Harris is superficial, and the racist attack at the end is awful but not built into the story very well.

In fact, this isn't what you would call a masterpiece—there are loose ends and a feel good arc that get in the way.

Even the photography by highly regarded Nestor Almendros is beautiful but contained, as if paced to be classic without being drippingly gorgeous. The tornado scene is quite dramatic, of course, and well done, and there are moments—Sally field coming through the sunny hallway to the screendoor—that are stunning.

But these are a film critic's gripes. I watched it all with joy and interest, and when it was done was glad for nearly every minute.

Forty Acres and no mule...

[higherall7 · 10/10 · 28 March 2021]

This film is comparable to SOUNDER (1972), by the fact that in each you have a young woman suddenly bereft of her husband's companionship and support. Now in this case, Edna Spaulding as unforgettably played by Sally Field, suffers this loss in an almost comic, inexplicable and violently tragic way. The scene is an accurate depiction of how racial tensions can vector off into the strangest directions. Things are set right, however, after Royce Spaulding, admirably played by Ray Baker, experiences his demise at the hands of a little black man named Wylie. He is poignantly played by an animated De'voreux White. Wylie is cut down by his family after being found hanging from a tree, but both Wylie and Royce end up having their funerals in segregated churches.

Before these gruesome and brutal deaths, things were already pretty grim with everyone in the depths of The Great Depression, barely scraping by irrespective of color. But now Edna is facing foreclosure and eviction from her modest home with her two children in tow, should she fail to pay her mortgage. Sucked into the void of her grief is a homeless African American man, name of Moze as played by Danny Glover, who is not above petty thievery. We find him begging for meals when not offering his services as an all-around handy man. Joining him is John Malkovich as Mister Will, a blind World War One veteran earmarked for the State Home, should Edna not take him in as a favor to her banker, Lane Smith as Albert Denby, who just happens to be his brother-in-law. Edna takes them both in as lodgers, Moze goes to the barn while Mister Will is in the house.

These two new men in her life, one black and one white, are not enough to make up for the lack of one whole husband. But their presence is enough to suggest to her ways and means to cultivate financial resources that might keep her in the house and on the farm. Speaking of farms, the bottom has fallen out for the cotton crop, but Edna needs to do something with her forty acres fast or lose them to creditors. Moze, after failing to convince Edna how painful and back breaking picking cotton can be, reluctantly takes charge of the sharecropping enterprise. There is good reason behind his reluctance, as the viewer eventually discovers.

Moze, while taking up quarters in the barn, winds up bringing a whole crew to the fields to help with the work. Edna finds herself out in the fields 'till can't see in the morning until far past can't see at night. She makes it her goal to get her crop in first before all other rivals in order to win a one hundred dollar bonus. Even a tornado ripping through their small town of Waxahachie, overturning vehicles and shaking the schoolhouse loose where Amy Madigan as Viola Kelsey teaches, when she is not carrying on an affair with a married man, does not shatter Edna's determination. But finally, it takes all hands on deck, including her son Frank and her daughter Possum, as well as her sister Margaret as played by Lindsey Crouse, and Ed Harris as Wayne Lomax, Margaret's philandering husband, for a final push of community effort. It is late at night, with Edna crawling on her hands and knees clutching cotton to her sack, before Moze finally tells her their work is finished.

There are other surprises lying in wait for this intrepid and unlikely band of survivors. Moze and party have managed to help Edna and family, Yankton Hatten as her son, Frank, and Gemmie James as Possum, to bring their crop in first. Unfortunately, the behind-the-scenes dickering of a homeless handy man does not come without a price. Edna bargains with Jay Patterson as W. E. Simmons for the best possible price per pound of cotton. But in the end, comes to reap consequences that prove to be more than she bargained for in Simmons office. Ultimately, writer and director Robert Benton brings everybody to church to partake of the body and blood of Christ, and we see the barriers break down between black and white as well as the living and the dead.

Of Tornadoes and the Ku Klux Klan

[evanston_dad · 7/10 · 17 March 2008]

A solid dust bowl soap opera that stars Sally Field as a weary widow struggling single-handedly to keep her cotton farm running.

Director Robert Benton's ("Kramer vs. Kramer") strengths are his ability to get great performances out of his actors; stylistically, there's nothing distinguished about his films. The same is true here. He's assembled a good cast, and he stands back and just lets them act. The movie is a like a checklist of every bad thing that could possibly happen to people living on a cotton farm in the 1930s, so we get a big tornado that wipes out the town and a special appearance by the Ku Klux Klan. It's probably authentic but it's also rather grueling. The movie is anchored by Field's fierce performance, and it's her that keeps the potential runaway melodrama in check.

The fine cast of at the time mostly unknowns includes John Malkovich as a blind drifter; Danny Glover as a slave; Lindsay Crouse and Ed Harris as Field's sister and brother-in-law. I should hate the sentimental ending, but instead I'll be damned if it doesn't work.

Grade: B+

Surprisingly manipulative, but extremely well acted

[aciolino · 5/10 · 25 June 2017]

Monster storms, the scourge of the KKK, infidelity, tragic death, and redemption. Who isn't frightened of monster storms? Who doesn't feel rage at the injustice of blind hatred in the form of the KKK? Who fails to feel for a wife whose husband has cheated on her? Or a wife whose husband has died tragically young?

And who, seeing all this, isn't uplifted by the redemption of the transgressors (except the Klansmen, I suppose) and the almost literal resurrection of the dead? Or the cleansing of sin through love and forgiveness(faith)? Who would not weep?

Unfortunately I was too aware of the easy manipulations taking place on the screen to be really moved, feeling the author's heavy and not so subtle hand at work, grabbing at my emotional heartstrings. Maybe I'm being too cynical, but that's how I experienced it. I could hear the scriptwriter, (Benton) saying, "Okay, NOW, we're gonna get you with a big storm -- look! How scary!" "Oh, and now, the Klan makes and appearance, and you will foam with rage!" Ah, no. Too transparent.

Yes, Mrs. Spaulding overcame an inordinate number of obstacles to show the world that the human spirit is indomitable. Yeah. Don't care.

The acting was good.