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5 comments about On Valentine's Day.

1. A quiet little gem with building moments of intensity, "On Valentine's Day" is based on the life of the grandmother of Hallie Foote, daughter of Horton Foote. Hallie stars as her grandmother in this lovely film. Screenplay is by Horton Foote and is produced by Lillian Foote. A young couple marries against family wishes in 1917 Wharton Texas. They move to a boarding house, living with characters who gradually reveal their hearts(including a young Matthew Broderick). A shy, lonely and plain girl befriends the new bride and they soon share their joys, fears and the news that Hallie is pregnant. "Bobby", a troubled, alcoholic and world-weary roomer (played by I believe Michael Higgins) brilliantly emits a sense of impending doom and you can't take your eyes off him. He creates a sense of danger, and you hold your breath, hoping you are misreading him.
   Softly photographed, you can almost smell the magnolias. This film brings back the sense of community from a time when neighbors truly knew one another, shared lives and a rhythm of peaceful grace was the rule. This film is a gift from a man whom you may recall wrote "To Kill A Mockingbird", "Tender Mercies" and "Trip to Bountiful", among other works. It is a treasure to cherish from a family which has contributed much to American literature.
   This certainly is worth getting on DVD as it will only become more interesting with age and you will want to share it with grandchildren as they get to an age where they can comprehend the real message this film contains.



2. This is the second movie in a projected series based on the plays of Horton Foote. ("1918" was the first.) This time the year is 1917, the place still rural Texas, and it's a slice-of-life look at a single family in their day-to-day trials and tribulations, which include drunkeness, insanity, and financial struggles. It can be slow at times, but like "1918" it's always absorbing and very realistic. Worth seeing.



3. Horton Foote's trilogy was produced for PBS years ago. It was called "The Story of a Marriage." The first in the series has now been released as "Courtship," the second is on "Valentine's Day", and the last is "1918". Horton Foote who is one of America's greatest writers paints a wonderfully accurate portrait of the slow pace of Texas life in the early part of the 20th century. What might seem slow pacing to those used to action-packed drama, is really Foote's beautifully sparce but meaningful language. This was a time when gentility mattered above all else. As was the case in small southern towns, the odd and eccentric were protected and cared for by the town, while hopefully kept out of sight. Foote embraces the damaged and the frail, weaving their lives along with those of the main characters, to portray a quiet tale of compassion, love and strength of character. The characters will stay with you forever.



4. Horton Foote is a playwright and screenwriter of the gentlest, most powerful kind. His beginnings in small town Texas has informed most all of his writing ever since. He has written for broadway, live television and hollywood. He wrote the amazing screenplay for "To Kill A Mockingbird" based on Harper Lee's book. He wrote the films "Tender Mercies" and "Trip to Bountiful" (based on his play) He's won the Pultzer Prize for his play "Young Man From Atlanta" (1995). Many of his plays have ended up on video/dvd and "On Valentine's" is one of them. It was first shown on PBS.
   
   There is a series of plays written by Mr. Foote called "The Orphan's Home Cycle". Nine terrific plays, gentle and rewarding individually...put them together and you have a gorgeous epic that spans decades. The plays follow a boy named Horace from childhood to adulthood.
   The middle three plays of this cycle are: "Courtship", "Valentine's Day" and "1918" and are all on DVD and available on Amazon.
   
   "On Valentine's Day" picks up two years after "Courtship" and takes place in a small town Texas rooming house where Horace and Elizabeth live as man and wife. A baby is on the way and it's Christmas Eve. There's been a divide between Elizabeth and her family because of who Elizabeth decided to marry and this play is about the reunion of the spirits and the love of a family as it comes back together. (Made all the more poignent because Horace is an "orphan" and is counting on Elizabeth to be her family.)
   Other residents of the rooming house give a view of the world around them and the delicate script gives a profound and addicting take on life and what makes up love, family and security.
   "On Valentine's Day" stands alone as an amazing timepiece. Put the film together with the previous chapter, "Courtship" and then the next chapter: "1918" and you have an amazing statement of life in small town America from 1915 to World War I. You have a dramatic poem about love and endurance. You also have an important document of Amercan theater by having a record of this great playwright's work come to life.
   
   The same wonderful cast is in all three films, offering great continuity of performance and sparse, tender storytelling.
   
   1918, Courtship, Horton Foote's - Alone



5. It takes a certain sensibility to enjoy the small but hardly insignificant pleasures of a Horton Foote story. Like Chekhov before him, he brings together a group of fully-drawn characters with hopes, aspirations, disappointment and sorrows and provides us with a glimpse into their interconnected lives. Set in the years before WWI, in a small Texas town not far from the Gulf, this story centers around a young married couple expecting their first baby as the bride's parents come to terms with her marriage - an elopement with a young storekeeper they regard as below her station. Also figuring in the story are an alcoholic boarder in their rooming house, a simple-minded friend of the young bride, and a relative who seems to be losing his mind and mysteriously comes and goes, handing out money.
   
   The first half of the story takes place on Christmas and the second half on Easter, the two chief holidays of the Christian liturgical calendar. The Valentine's Day of the title, which comes between them, is the couple's first anniversary. Together, they represent the cycle of birth, love, and death that seems always at the background of whatever story Foote has to tell. A small-scale film, structured in the style of a stage play, "On Valentine's Day" has wonderful performances and evokes a place and time long lost in the American past.

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