In 1902, 13-year-old Horace toils on a run-down plantation in rural Texas to buy a tombstone for the father he lost a year earlier. Soll, the crusty old Confederate who owns the plantation and depends on convict labor to keep his farm running, takes a liking to Horace. However, Soll is aging and sinking into senility, making the possibility of Horace ever getting his pay increasingly unlikely. On Christmas Eve, as Soll becomes obsessed with his own mortality, he makes a grand promise... forcing Horace to confront his fear of death and the harsh truths of a decadent society.
Acting
Duvall's Soll: monstrous, pitiable, never simple.
Writing
Horton Foote's dialogue—every word earned, every silence loaded.
Director
Peter Masterson
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Convict leasing was slavery by another name—Texas didn't abolish it until 1910, making Soll's plantation historically accurate economic horror.
Lukas Haas was 14, already a veteran of Witness and Mars Attacks—his stillness here is the opposite of child-actor precocity.
US
