Convicts

Esteemed American playwright and Oscar-winning screenwriter Horton Foote adapted his own play for this modest 1991 drama, a coming-of-age story directed by Peter Masterson that is set on a turn-of-the-century Texas plantation. Robert Duvall stars as aging landowner Soll Gautier, a skinflint who uses convict labor on his spread, and Lukas Haas is 13-year-old Horace Robedaux, who is working in the plantation store to earn the money he needs for a headstone for his dead father. But Gautier doesn't part with cash easily (he owes the boy for six months' wages, an obligation that he keeps putting off), and the main story plays out over a long Christmas Eve day as Gautier loses his memory and slips into paranoid hallucinations. A small, intimate tale about mortality, Convicts benefits from strong performances by Duvall, who brings a mix of authority and fragility to his character; Haas, who has a clear-eyed attentiveness and childlike doggedness; and James Earl Jones as store manager Ben, Gautier's closest approximation of a friend. The second entry in Foote's nine one-act plays comprising The Orphans' Home cycle—and one of five to reach the big screen (along with Lily Dale, Valentine's Day, Courtship, and 1918)—this is a loving adaptation that showcases Foote's lyrical language. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)