Review: Places in the Heart

First posted: August 21, 2007

My father said once that he got a PH.D. so that he would never have to chop cotton again. He was grinning when he said it, but after watching Places in the Heart, I believe him.

My father was born in Cherokee County and was raised in rural northeastern Oklahoma – not a major cotton growing area, but enough cotton was grown there to motivate him.

Based on everything I have heard and the graphic portrayal in Places in the Heart, picking cotton has to be one of the most miserable of human activities. An incentive to do almost anything to find a better way to make a living.

The synopsis on the box that came with DVD carried on at length about the love triangle between Sally Field's sister, her husband and the local school teacher. I didn't remember that at all. Everyone is different, so I suppose that some film-goers would find the struggles with infidelity as important as the other part. I remembered the struggle Field had to save her home as well as the tornado and the cotton picking scenes. Those scenes are what led me watch the movie again.

When I was a child, the depression was not something read about in the history books, but something that still affected my family. I heard about it in off-hand comments and explanations of pictures, like those of my father and his sister on the porch of the smoke house on my great-grandfather's farm. (They converted the smoke house to a cabin for my father's family. My great-grandfather had a pension from the State of Oklahoma for his services in the War for Southern Independence. That was enough to feed the families in the worst of the depression.)

Since then, of course, I've read about it and seen pictures and documentaries about the 1930s.

As far as I can tell, the portrayal of the people, the time and the place are accurate. The movie is based on writer-director Robert Benton's childhood during the depression in central Texas. He received an Academy Award for the script – and he deserved it.

Sally Field made her famous "You really like me" speech when she was presented with an Oscar for her role as Edna. That incident overshadows the merits of the film.

Some of the message boards at Imdb have commented on the use of the film in English classes (as part of the presentation with To Kill a Mockingbird) and in history classes for its graphic portrayal of life in the Great Depression.

Some viewers who comment on the boards at Imdb have agreed with me about the irrelevance of the adultery story. Others have commented that all Fields' efforts only staved off bankruptcy for about 6 months, until the next semiannual payment came due. Maybe so. I wondered about the generous payment to Moze. On the other hand, the school-teacher left, so maybe she got that job. Mr. Will was paying room and board, although I doubt if that would be enough. That isn't really the point, though.

The point was the heroic struggles of the people during the depression just to survive and hold on to what they valued. Story tellers pick a part of real life events to make their point, it isn't real life, it's a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Real life people's stories don't end until they die – and then the story goes on in the lives they touched.

Others were confused by the ending. It seems to be fantasy. The Great Depression occurred fifty years before the movie was filmed. The scene at the end showed the good people reunited in heaven signified by the communion in church. Again, one Imdb commentator mentioned that the Ku Klux Klan members weren't represented. The only one I could be certain of was that gin-operator wasn't there. About the rest. I couldn't say.

The themes of forgiveness and the triumph of good (The sheriff sitting with his killer, for instance.) are made clear in this scene.

The supporting cast is superb. Danny Glover, Lindsey Crouse, Amy Madigan, and Ed Harris give marvelous, believable performances. John Malkovich is convincing as the blind man, Mr. Will. One detail that stood out to me was that as playing a man blinded after having sight, he moved his eyes in the direction of the person speaking, but didn't focus. One blind from birth would not move his eyes, but it is almost involuntary for a person who has had sight to look at the speaker. A telling detail.

The expression on Malkovitch's face when he discovers that he has blundered into the kitchen where Fields is taking a bath is priceless. Malkovitch was nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting Actor. He lost out to another great performance by Haing S. Ngor in The Killing Fields. Sometimes it seems there is really nothing to give an award for and other times there is a plethora of outstanding performances.

One of the sad things in the movie is the banker being self-righteous about the cotton farmers he is about to foreclose on. Then when Sally Field gets her harvest in, she starts thinking that she can expand her fields and get rich growing cotton. In an odd sort of way, the KKK that ran off Danny Glover did her a favor by nipping that hare-brained scheme in the bud.

The reason I find all this sad is that the bankers who loaned farmers money in good times – letting them get over-extended – and self-righteously foreclosed in bad times are the principle culprits in the depression.

There is a lesson here about the current crisis in the housing market.

I can't seem to find a pithy comment to end this review. It would be corny to say that Places in the Heart has a place in my heart, wouldn't it? Truth is, though, that this is a movie that speaks to me, that I have remembered long after I've forgotten many others. I like movies that take me some place I've never been and never will see. Especially if they tie into my life in some way -- as this does.

Places in the Heart is about the struggles of everyone who tries to hold on to the important things in life – home, family, love – whether they win or lose.

And of course, why some one might have a powerful incentive to find some easier way to make a living than chopping cotton.