Places in the Heart

Robert Benton’s fifth feature (for which he won the Best Director Silver Bear at the 1985 Berlinale) is set in his small hometown of Waxahachie, Texas during the Great Depression. Lensed by Néstor Almendros, the film follows the recently widowed Edna (Sally Field) as she and her two children try to get by, running their 40-acre farm amid financial hardship and the menace of the Ku Klux Klan’s strong local presence. But when drifting handyman Moze (Glover) appears on her doorstep asking for work, Edna and her family’s prospects start to look up, though the myriad tensions of the period’s economic climate and racial politics persist. Field won the Best Actress Oscar for her turn as Edna, and Glover, in only his fifth theatrical film, is captivating as her unexpected lifeline.