Hard Promises (1992)

Joey Coalter (William Petersen TV's "C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation") is a restless adventurer who's been married for nearly thirteen years to his high-school sweetheart Christine (Sissy Spacek Coal Miner's Daughter) but has been working odd jobs that have kept him away from home nearly the whole time. Fed up with her husband's wandering ways Chris files for divorce and makes plans to marry a local and reliable businessman. Completely stunned when he receives a wedding invitation (secretly sent by their daughter Beth) Joey rushes home to try to win back his wife in this true-to-life romantic comedy.System Requirements: Running Time 95 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: PG UPC: 027616125408 Manufacturer No: 12540 Product Description

Very entertaining

You don't need to be a rocket scientist to enjoy this movie. The description of the movie is listed with the movie. I enjoyed it because it kept me connected to the characters emotionally. Joey Coalter(William Petersen)has an itch to travel and see knew places. He takes care of his family by providing for them. He remembers birthdays and sent a bike to his daughter Beth(Olivia Burnette).The only problem is he's neveer there. His wife Christie(Sissy Spacek) realizes that in the 12 years they've been married, he'd been home less than half the time. She decides to get an divorce. She choses a long time friend Stuart (Peter MacNicol) to process the divorce. They didn't know where Joey was so they posted ads in newspapers asking him to contact them. Christie waited the specified amount of time and having Joey not contact them, the divorce was finalized.
At the beginning, the viewer is introduced to a boylike character in Joey Coalter. But as the film movie develops we discover that Joey has no idea what he has done wrong. For him it's a perfect relationship. They both do the things they love and they meet 4 or 5 times a year. She is no longer a girl and wants a stable relationship. She finds this with an old friend, Walt(Brian Kerwin).
The one thing that bothers me most is the lack of assistance Joey gets from his best friend Pinky(Jeff Perry). Pinky claims that he tried everything to contact Joey, but couldn't. It makes me wonder how serious he was, considering Joey's 12 year old daughter Beth was able to reach him.
The part that angered me was that Christie let her best friend walk all over her. I think Pinky's wife Dawn(Mare Winningham)manipulated Christie in filing for divorce. She is constantly putting Joey down and extolling Walt's virtues.
In the end, Joey finally realizes what he did wrong and lets go of Christie finding that true love for her he always thought he had.
Though all the performances in this movie are wonderful, I found the chemistry between Petersen and Olivia Burnette charming. I always cry at the end of the movie, even though I've watched several times since I got it. May 20, 2008

Wonderful Romantic comedy!

This was a really great film! It had a bittersweet ending and Petersen was wonderful as usual in the role of Joey Coalter. The young girl who played his daughter Beth did a great job too. I remember her from the TV show The Torkelsons. I recommend this film to anyone who enjoys romantic comedies. August 18, 2007

Nicely Done But Not for Everybody

"Hard Promises" is a bit like a doing a rural remake of "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn" into which you incorporate the basic premise of "Sweet Home Alabama". While not in the same league as the former, it is considerably less offensive than the latter-which it may have inspired.

Billed as a romantic "comedy", the film contains little humor (unless you are still amused by small town stock characters) and nothing profound in the romance department. But like "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn" it is about the interplay of love, freedom, and caring among people who have allowed a considerable distance to grow up between each other.

It features a nice performance by Sissy Spacek (who looks unexpectedly sexy and beautiful) and a nice portrayal of a charismatic character by William Peterson. Yet they are both upstaged by Olivia Burnette who plays the Francie character (handled so well by Peggy Ann Garner in "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn").

Joey Coalter (Peterson) is an aimless free-spirit who neglects his wife and daughter while drifting around the country. Like Johnny in "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" he is full of unfulfilled promises and pipe dreams. He returns on the eve of his wife Christine's (Spacek) wedding; having been alerted by his daughter that Christine has obtained a divorce during his latest absence. About all Joey has going for him with viewers is that he loves both his daughter and his wife. About all he still has going for him with Christine is the charisma of a free- spirit and a continuing physical attraction.

His daughter Beth (Burnette) is his ally in his attempts to salvage their family, as she is not particularly fond of her mother's fiancée (Brian Kerwin). Kerwin's stable but boring character is the polar opposite of Joey and she thinks her mother is overcompensating for Joey's historical unreliability.

"Hard Promises" is mostly dedicated to exploring Joey's inherent and impossible to change aimlessness. This gets a little oppressive if you are looking for a dynamic story but the film is a successful exercise in unity and style. The score and the editing reinforce this theme and provide a surprising number of really beautiful and moving film moments. The climax is unconventional and they go out on a nice scene between father and daughter.

It is an unexpectedly slick production, a triumph of style over substance.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child. May 17, 2006

A Poignant, Yet Aimless Drama with Occasional Highlights...

Aimlessness presents the notion of being adrift without any direct purpose, or ambition, while it could also symbolize a nomadic lifestyle of living from day to day. Either case lacks direction, which often originates within a dreamy vision without a direct goal such as the wonder of what a hill hides on the other side. Once the initial curiosity has been put to rest, a new fascination arises from what lies beyond the next hill. The drifty mind also emerges through students' difficulty in paying attention for a longer amount of time, as boredom sets in, or through the consequence of an attention deficit. Hard Promises tells a tale of such a man, Joey, performed by William L. Petersen who most will recognize from the TV crime drama CSI.

The director Martin Davidson cleverly opens the film with a panning shot that symbolically portrays the notion of Joey's aimlessness, as a cowboy rides across a vast prairie with large hills in the background. Smoothly the camera flows to the left, as Joey's persona appears on the screen. He is telling a small group of cowboys a story from Tahiti, but these men do not understand the point of his story, which furthers the notion that Joey is a unique individual with lofty and continuously shifting dreams. However, Joey's dreams are all about to crash when a letter arrives that seems to have been all over the United States in the search for him. With a blank stare Joey begins to grasp the content of the letter, as someone is getting married - his wife.

After a long drive back home, a disgruntled Joey first visits his friend Pinky (Jeff Perry) in order to get his bearings on the situation. It has been a long time since they met, and Pinky wants to share with Joey about his successes such as a child, a promotion, and a dream car. But Joey brushes it all off, as he quickly asks Pinky about his wife's wedding situation and how he could have missed it. Quickly, yet nicely, Pinky drops the bomb on Joey and tells him that she has divorced him and now wants to get married. As the story unfolds, it reveals that Joey has been traveling the world while working odd jobs, as his wife and daughter have been stranded away from Joey's search for something better. It has been a lengthy solitude for his wife Chris (Sissy Spacek) who even breaks down the solitude over the last 12 years in days, which makes it obvious that he has neglected her. Joey also has a daughter with Chris whose upbringing he has nearly completely missed, which would make most people feel a little irritated with him.

Despite Joey's selfish preoccupation with the search for something, it is hard to be angry with him, as his awareness is much similar with that of an irresponsible child who does not truly understands what he does that hurts others. Joey is also a very nice and polite person, which emerges whenever he meets people in the film. These conflicting concepts of friendliness and selfishness presents an interesting character study that Davidson's film provides through Petersen's performance. The supporting cast including Sissy Spacek accentuates Joey's egocentric behaviors, which brings forth both his positive and negative characteristics. It is also interesting to see how he rationalizes his own self-centered behaviors. Nonetheless, it is with sadness that the viewer will see how his daughter is caught between him and a traditional family lifestyle with a father figure in the home.

The character development and the persona of Joey are rather stimulating. Yet, the film fails to notice its own weakness, as it does not have any distinct discord. Maybe, it is to enhance Joey's indifference. However, it makes the film feel unimportant, and might loose some viewer's attention when it gives insufficient effort to portray issues such as love, freedom, and family. The lack of meaning hurts the cinematic experience, as it does not reach above other films with a similar theme. November 13, 2005

Funny, touching, love story -- doesn't get better

The chemistry of the actors in this movie make the sweet little love story really a gem. Sissy Spacek is a teacher ready to get re-married when her daughter sends a wedding invitation to William Peterson, the ex. He has been a drifter following jobs all over the country and doesn't even know he's divorced. He rushes back to win Sissy back with comic results. They find they still have a spark for each other. Their daughter just wants her family back and this lends a touch of bitter-sweeetness to the movie. Mare Winningham is great as Sissys best friend. November 12, 2005

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