Hard Promises movie review & film summary (1992)

He races back to his small town, arriving on the eve of the ceremony at which Spacek will marry a safe but stolid businessman (Brian Kerwin). He's appalled. Just because he doesn't want to be his wife's husband is no reason for anyone else to be. The story progresses through painful episodes such as the one where Spacek locks him out of the house and he shinnies up the tree and she argues with him through the second-floor bedroom window, etc., while the neighbors look on and offer helpful suggestions while serving cookies.

It struck me, while he was up there shouting through the window, that no real people in any place or any time ever acted like this. The people in "Hard Promises" are inspired not by life but by the mentality of sitcoms, in which real problems are broken down into semantic ones that can be solved with punch lines.

The small town contains, in addition to nosy neighbors, the usual stock characters: the blustery lawyer, the loyal pal, the good ol' boys at the pool hall, etc. The town is united in the conviction that Spacek should dump Petersen and get herself a respectable husband, but, darn it all, she's attracted to her hellcat first husband in his tight jeans and faded T-shirts, and something just comes over her when she sees that light in his eyes, leading to the inevitable scene in which he has to jump out of the bedroom window and shinny down the tree, while more or less putting on his pants at the same time. The story hinges on whether Spacek will call off her marriage and go back to Petersen. So equitably does the screenplay handle her choices that by the end of the movie I could still not decide which she should do; both men seemed like equally wrong choices for her, and if I had been asked I would have advised her to leave town and try to get herself in a better movie.