Tender Mercies (film)

Tender Mercies (Directed by Bruce Beresford)/1983

We see a couple of shadows moving in the glow of yellow light.  The light is coming out of a small motel room next to a rickety country house in a middle of nowhere.  The voices of the shadows sound like two old men fighting over a bottle.  The next morning we see Mac, lying on a bed by himself.  His friend has left him and he has no money to pay for the room.  He offers to work for a few hours.  The few hours turn into a more permanent arrangement.

Mac is a recovering alcoholic country singer that is trying to turn a new leaf. We learn by inference that he turns into a scoundrel when he drinks; he has been violent towards his ex-wife, leaving scarred memories for her and his daughter.

He settles down with Rosa and her son, and helps them look after the motel.  He stops drinking and gets baptised.  However gradually his past comes back to haunt him: be it his musical fame or his embittered daughter.

The film moves along gently just like Mac’s personality (when he’s sober).  There is some struggle but his new partner and adoring boy is just too precious to risk.  He is not sure how he came to have a loving partner and a nice boy when others who seemingly have not sinned experience tragedy. He dwells on this question, just as the film does.

Sitting in the background is a heavy portrayal of Christianity: Rosa is a devout Christian and is in the church choir.  The community is close and welcoming of Mac. His ex-wife is successful as a country singer but has a personal tragedy, and Rosa’s husband was killed in the Vietnam war. At the end of the day Rosa and her son had to live through the tragedy of losing a husband and a father but gains Mac.  Mac who had been a scoundrel goes through a tragedy of his own.

In our society there is a strong idea that good results from good and bad from bad.  This encourages people to act according to a particular belief system, be it religious or legal, so that they don’t get punished and suffer from their bad deed.

However in life, bad things sometimes just happen to people; one can read meaning into them but would find that often  the formula doesn’t apply consistently.  In dealing with the inconsistency, people either get angry at the unfairness or try to find a pattern, blame "the system" and become activists.  Others completely surrender to the course of life and accept things as they are. Some religious people say that the people that suffered must have done something wrong, otherwise God would not have punished them; yet, why does God intervene and help some people that have committed horrendous acts, but strike down others in hurricanes or through illness? It all seems so arbitrary and unfair. 

This film portrays the various ways people deal with tragedies.  Those without spiritual grounding, such as Mac’s ex-wife, are bed ridden with despair.  In Rosa’s case she finds peace in religion.  Mac laments the meaning of all that has befallen him and those around him at the final scene of the film.  I take that the film did its job as I ended up dwelling on these questions too.


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