How others will see it. Tomorrow is a black and white movie with bleak sets. There are only two consequential female characters, the middle-aged midwife Sudie Bond and the nearly pathetic Bellin. Thus, the film is without eye candy. It has the look of a play, which of course it was between its novel and film incarnations.
All of which minimizes its potential audience. Most filmgoers in 1972 lined up to see The Godfather but likely never even heard of Tomorrow. Here is a film more likely to be shown in a classroom than in a theater, and will be rented mostly by those interested in the careers of Horton or Duvall, or its Deep South setting.
Although relatively few people will ever see the movie, it has its rewards for those fortunate to come across it. The South of the turn of the century has been portrayed colorfully (e.g., The Reivers) but never has it appeared so bleak and unrewarding. The men and women eking out a living under such conditions appear heroic when compared to our more comfortable existence today.
How I felt about it. The folks are simpler. Dialogue is minimal, but it is also meaningful and straightforward. Duvall doesn't concoct an elaborate proposal to Bellin, as you might find in a bogus but crowd-pleasing romantic movie. He simply asks her straight out. But it is not an impulsive act. One suspects it has been lingering in his mind since the day he first met her, and came out only when he felt it was finally appropriate.
What's lacking is humor. Perhaps, if life is sufficiently meager and isolated, humor is a foreign, bewildering experience. The margin for error is so slender that it is no laughing matter when things go wrong. Farmers are the traditional customers for mail order wives, and one suspects that the city-raised girls have to shed layers of their personalities to find common ground with their new husbands. The upside is that right and wrong becomes clear. A good businessman in the city may be seen as a swindler on the country farm.
Tomorrow was one of several collaborations between writer Foote and actor Duvall, although Tender Mercies and To Kill a Mockingbird are better known. Duvall plays his role as dry and straight as possible, showing the emotional range of a fence post on the outside while rivers of feeling run beneath. The film implies that stoicism is practically bred into itinerant farmer families, whose lives of toil lack meaning if your education or expectations exceed the practical task at hand.