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List Price: $29.95 | | Label: Homevision
Salesrank: 31293
Released: May 4, 2004 |
| Our Price: $23.99 |
| Used Price: $22.94 |
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MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Starring Robert Duvall in his breakthrough screen role, Tomorrow is a poignant tale based on a short story by William Faulkner, and scripted by Academy Award® winner Horton Foote (To Kill a Mockingbird, Tender Mercies). Duvall is Jackson Fentry, a young man
who leaves his father’s farm to work at a local sawmill. Fentry rescues a young pregnant woman, who has been abandoned by her husband and family, and the two fall in love. Shot in black and white to convey the feel of the Depression era, Tomorrow remains the finest screen translation of Faulkner’s vision of the South.
Description of Tomorrow:
Based on the William Faulkner story and featuring one of Robert Duvall's finest performances, Tomorrow was first adapted by Horton Foote for TV's Playhouse 90 in 1960. Eight years later, Foote--whose script for To Kill a Mockingbird provided Duvall's screen debut--presented the same story as an off-Broadway play with Duvall and Olga Bellin in the lead roles, which they reprised in 1971 for this independently produced film.
As with Tender Mercies--which earned Academy Awards for both Foote and Duvall in 1983--Tomorrow tells a simple tale of gentle people, and the sensitive script, direction, and performances offer an enlightening portrait of compassion and unconditional love. Duvall plays Fentry, a Mississippi cotton farmer in the early 1900s who leaves his father's farm to work as the winter watchman of a dormant sawmill. There, he encounters Sarah (Bellin), a pregnant woman abandoned by her husband and suffering from a life-threatening illness. They eventually marry, but inevitably, Fentry (portrayed by Duvall as a kind of holy innocent) alone must raise the woman's child--a good-natured boy whose fate is determined by a heartbreaking claim of familial custody.
The story is framed by a murder trial, the outcome of which leads to the film's resonant and quietly moving conclusion. Like so much of Foote's work, Tomorrow was tailor-made for Duvall, and it has much to say about endurance, integrity, and uncommon decency under difficult circumstances. Directed by Joseph Anthony with an appropriately somber tone, this delicate drama nevertheless offers a wise and uplifting affirmation of the resilient human spirit. For Duvall's many admirers, this is a must-see film. --Jeff Shannon
Tomorrow Reviews:
Cinematic Masterpiece 
2008-08-02 - After so many painful memories of too many Lit classes with far too much Faulkner I almost turned off this movie the minute the announcer on TCM said his name in relation to this movie. Well I'm glad I did, though I can't say this movie hasn't cost me. This is not a feel good movie, it rips your heart out. I don't tend to like Faulkner, he always seemed a bit pretentious in comparison with contemporaries like Hemingway. This movie/story is as far from pretentious as anything could be but with all the depth and heart kept in. If anyone every asked me what a truely good person would be like, I could only point to Duvall's masterful portrayal of Fulkner's heartrending character. This film is deliberate in its simplicity and that may turn some people off. It's a story about simple people in a simple setting, which may seem alien to our modern over-stimulated brains. However, it all works beautifully to create an incredibly real and touching slice of life. I wouldn't recommend this to people who need a lot of action in a movie or even people who aren't movie buffs. Also, you likely need to be a fan of drama to like this film and not find it slow. Then again, I hate drama but adored this movie so maybe you should take a chance.
"I'll never leave unless you ask me to."
2008-07-19 -
The drama opens in a Mississippi courtroom in the early 1900s, an attorney pleading with a jury to find his client innocent of murdering a young man, claiming the man was defending his daughter's honor. Jury deliberation is shanghaied by one man, Jackson Fentry (Robert Duvall), causing a mistrial. The attorney makes it his business to learn more about Fentry, a story beginning twenty years earlier, declaring, "If I knew then what I know now, he would never have sat on this journey." Based on Horton Foote's adaptation of a story by William Faulkner, Fentry is a solitary, taciturn man, hardly an anomaly in that period, survival accomplished with a minimum of comfort and much labor. Accepting a job as caretaker of a Tupelo sawmill, Fentry settles into a quiet existence, adapting easily to his circumstances.
Preparing to walk to his father's farm thirty-one miles away the day before Christmas, Fentry is distracted by moans originating in the sawmill. He discovers a pregnant woman (Olga Bellin), collapsed in exhaustion. Embarrassed by her predicament, the woman wants only to "get my strength back" before moving on, but Fentry senses her frailty, guiding her into his shack. She is clearly unwell. In an act of instinctive generosity, Fentry offers her shelter until the child is born. What ensues is a delicate, respectful relationship ("Yessir", "No, Ma'am"), a compassionate loner offering protection to a woman abandoned by her husband, cast out after her marriage by her father and three brothers. The emotional nuances between these two characters beautifully balanced, Sarah tentative and trusting, Fentry revealing a depth of character and capacity for love belied by his restricted circumstances. This gentle, frightened woman blossoms under the tender care of the stranger who offers shelter.
As the birth draws near, Sarah speaks of her fear of dying, exacting a promise from Fentry that he will raise her child if something happens to her. After the birth, Fentry cradles the infant boy, declaring him "my son"; Sarah agrees to marry him since her lawful husband is in the wind. Thus pass the happiest days of Fentry's life, the boy the center of his existence until circumstances conspire against Fentry, his joy extinguished in one devastating afternoon until the scene in the courtroom twenty years later. Duvall is superb in Faulkner's dark drama, his spirit shining through a character with an infinite and previously untapped capacity for love. The dialog is simple, powerful in the hands of Duvall and Bellin, who embrace their brief encounter. Duvall transcends the screen, his monotone bringing to mind Billy Bob Thornton's inflections in "Sling Blade" (perhaps Thornton's inspiration?). Vivid against a stark landscape, Duvall creates magic, a touching, evocative film, a lonely man seizing an opportunity seldom encountered in his barren world. Luan Gaines/ 2008.
Two lonely people . . . 
2008-02-22 - This is a movie for fans of a) William Faulkner, b) Horton Foote, c) Robert Duvall, and d) stage plays. Viewers unused to the pace of drama as written for the stage will find this adaptation of Foote's play slow and wordy. Confined mostly to the four walls of a shack, the action will seem claustrophobic at times. But the performances are wonderful, and Foote's always gentle vision of everyday people struggling for love and against loneliness makes the relationship between the story's two central characters poignant and touching.
Meanwhile, Duvall's performance is compelling. The only thing distracting about it is not his fault but Billy Bob Thornton's, who obviously stole from it years later for the unforgettable role he plays in "Slingblade." The early performances of so many actors show them still learning their craft, but the risks Duvall takes with his character shows him already an uncanny master of his art. Finally, Faulkner's world is given eloquent expression in this small black-and-white gem of a film, set in a kind of timeless place that his Mississippi represents. The DVD includes an interview with Duvall and Foote, made in 2003, and provides a number of interesting perspectives on the making of the film. Foote, for example, expresses reservations about the undue influence of the film's editor in the shaping of its final form, and Duvall describes a scene so crucial in his estimation that he would not see the film when the scene was cut.
I can't believe I spent this much money on this. 
2008-02-13 - I should have paid more attention to K. Williams' review. We disagree on one point, though. Williams thinks the movie is too long. I think that any length would be too long.
Yes, the acting is excellent, but in order to create a good movie you absolutely must start with a good script. This one just drags on and on. I stayed with the movie all the way to the end, thinking that, with all the 5-star reviews, there must eventually be something to this boring story. Wrong!
I rarely give a bad review (see my others), mostly because I don't usually err when I buy something. This DVD was a mistake.
Do not buy this DVD until you have rented it first.
Also, be aware of the review phenomenon wherein people who disagree with your review will mark that it wasn't helpful.
TOMORROW
2007-09-15 - RATING-PG for thematic elements. There is one intense scene of pain during childbirth but nothing explicit. A murder happens on-screen but nothing graphic or closeup.
STARRING-Robert Duvall. Screenplay by Horton Foote.
THEME-Unconditional love and compassion.
STORY-Based on a short story by William Faulkner, the film opens with the brief flashback of a night scene where a young man and woman are apparently trying to elope without her parent's knowledge. The family is aroused and the young man is shot and killed by the father. The camera then moves to the courtroom of a small Mississippi town where a murder trial is in its final argument stage. As the defense wraps up its final argument, the camera pans the jury zooming in on Jackson Fentry (Duvall). When he casts the lone vote against acquitting the father resulting in a hung jury, the defense attorney wonders why would this man vote against 11 of his peers, in this his first trial as a lawyer. The rest of the movie tells us why by taking us back 20 years in the life of Fentry. Duvall is at his best in his role of Jackson Fentry, an introverted cotton farmer who leaves his father's farm to be the watchman at a rural sawmill about 30 miles from home. We see a tragic and touching love story between Duvall and a young, pregnant woman who has been deserted by her husband. In Duvall you see man's capacity for love and to do good. In the end we also experience man's capacity for evil and to do harm to his fellow man. This is not a fast-paced action film with lots of special effects but the acting is outstanding and well worth watching. Lu G. for Lu's Reviews 9/15/2007. www.lusreviews.blogspot.com
