Places in the Heart

As with the best of memoirs, the film bears the verisimilitude of true art. It is a movie filled with small marvels, a welcome addition to the prestige films of fall. [02 Oct 1984]

Places in the Heart is set in another time and place. But it becomes universal because it is also a personal story of an artist turning from the safe confessional platitudes of Yuppiedom to a more mature confrontation with the complexities in his own past. [05 Oct 1984, p.C1]

Sweet and relatively simple, a classic episodic melodrama of unabashed tenderness and unapologetic warmth, but it's not sentimental, and its offhanded explication of racism in rural Texas in 1935 is integrated so seamlessly with its dramatization of the widow Spalding's crusade to keep her farm, that the dark undercurrents of the film are easy to overlook.

Robert Benton has made one of the best films in years about growing up American. Read full review

Much is unemphatic, but all of it carries the moving weight of conviction. And it ends on a healing grace-note which passeth all understanding. Read full review

[Benton's] memories provide the material for a wonderful movie, and he has made it, but unfortunately he hasn't stopped at that. He has gone on to include too much. He tells a central story of great power, and then keeps leaving it to catch us up with minor characters we never care about. Read full review

Sentimental from the moment the title hits the screen. But it's a nice kind of sentimentality, based on real affection for the characters and real involvement with a place and time. Read full review

Director Robert Benton effectively re-creates depression-era Texas in this moving tale that landed the second Oscar for Field. Read full review

Places in the Heart grapples with great and important themes -- sexism, racism, grief, despair -- and in aiming high it achieves much. Not quite as much, perhaps, as its primary creator, Robert Benton, might have hoped for, but enough to make it a distinguished film that is both moving and provocative. [21 Sep 1984, p.C1]

Flawlessly crafted, Benton creates a full tapestry of life in Waxahachie, Texas circa 1935, but filmgoers may find his understated naturalistic approach lacking in dramatic punch. Read full review

The film isn't just about the widow -- it's about family, community, America, and Christian love. But Benton's gentle, nostalgic presentation muffles this. His craftsmanship is like an armor built up around his refusal to outrage or offend anyone; it's an encrusted gentility.

There's nothing but sheer manipulativeness holding this picture together. Read full review