Places in the Heart

This emotionally gripping story centers around Edna Spalding and her unending struggle against extraordinary hardships. But, as recalled from director-writer Robert Benton's own childhood, it's also a portrait of a time and a place and a people. It is the 1930s in Waxahachie, Texas. Against this Depression-torn background, unforgettable characters meet and collide. Like Mr. Will, the blind boarder who sees all too clearly the bigotry of his time, Moze, a black man who knows a lot, including his own place in a white Southern town, and Wayne, Margaret and Viola, decent people caught up in an adulterous triangle which threatens two marriages. Together they leave an indelible impression of faith, courage, love and, most of all, endurance.