NOON WINE (1985)

Texas, 1890s. Royal Thompson and his wife Ellie live on a small, struggling dairy farm, raising two young sons. The work is hard and Ellie has spells of sickness involving headaches and fatigue. One hot summer afternoon, a tall Swede named Olaf Helton, shambling and a bit disoriented, shows up and asks for work. Royal decides that pawning off jobs such as butchering and cleaning would be a good thing, so he hires Helton on the spot. Helton is quiet but nervous, a man of few words whose only real pleasure in life seems to be playing the same song, over and over, on a harmonica, of which he has several. He quickly becomes indispensable, though Ellie finds him a bit off-putting, especially after he physically assaults the two boys for messing with his harmonicas. Soon, however, the four settle into a routine that lasts for nine years until a bounty hunter named Homer Hatch shows up looking for Helton, claiming he's an escapee from an asylum where he was committed after he killed his own brother with a pitchfork for losing one of his harmonicas. Thompson is unmoored: if Hatch is telling the truth, Helton is a potential menace to him and his family, but given the past nine years, maybe Olaf is no longer dangerous. Or Hatch could be lying for some reason. Either way, Thompson's loyalty is to Olaf, which leads him down a potentially self-destructive path.

From the beginning of this made-for-TV movie, based on a novella by Katherine Anne Porter and originally aired on PBS's American Playhouse, it seems clear that violence will rear its head, probably at the film's climax. When Olaf's not playing his harmonica, he seems to always be at a quiet simmer that could boil over at any time. But when the violence does occur (a plot point I won't spoil), it happens at about an hour into this 90-minute movie, and it comes from an unexpected place. The last part of the film deals with the effects of  the violence on everyone involved. The ending is not happy but is narratively satisfying, drawing on the themes in Porter's story of betrayal and guilt. Fred Ward (pictured as Thompson) rarely had a lead role, opting mostly for character parts, but he carries the film very well here. Stellan Skarsgard (so good in HBO's Chernobyl a few years ago) does what he can with the role of the inarticulate Helton; the character remains a cipher to us so Skarsgard can't really deepen our understanding of him, but he does make him a character we have sympathy for, even as we're not sure he deserves it. Lise Hilboldt is fine as Ellie, as is Pat Hingle as the sweaty and unlikable hatch. Jon Cryer (best known for the sitcom Two and a Half Men) is one of the sons; the other, Brent Hadaway, is just as good but appears not to have pursued an acting career. The director, Michael Fields, captures the hot smothering feel of a Texas summer, but this is Ward's piece and he’s the best reason for watching. [DVD]