1972’s Tomorrow opens up in rural Mississippi, in the early 40s.  A man is on trial for shooting another man.  The majority of the juror wants to acquit the shooter because it’s generally agreed that the victim was a no-account, someone who was never going to amount to anything and who the entire country is better off without.  Only one juror votes to convict, a quiet and stoic-looking farmer named Fenty (Robert Duvall).  Fenty refuses to go into much detail about why he’s voted to convict.  Despite the efforts of the other jurors, Fenty refuses to change his vote and the end result is a hung jury.

The film flashes twenty years, to show why Fenty eventually voted the way that he did.  Even in the past, Fenty is quiet and shy, a farmer who also works as a caretaker at another property that is several miles away.  He walks to and from his home.  Even on Christmas Eve, he says that he plans to walk the 30 miles back to his farm and then, on the day after Christmas, the 30 miles back to his caretaking job.  Fenty is someone who keeps to himself, answering most questions with just a few words and revealing little about how he feels about anything.

When Fenty comes across a sickly and pregnant drifter named Sarah Eubanks (Olga Bellin), he takes her into his farm and he nurses her back to health.  The film examines the bond that forms between Fenty and Sarah, two people who have been judged by society to be of little significance.  It’s not an easy life but Fenty endures.  Fenty’s decision to take in Sarah is a decision that will ultimately lead to Fenty’s guilty vote at the trial many years later.

Tomorrow is a film that is not as well-known as it should be.  Adapted by Horton Foote from a William Faulkner short story, the black-and-white film is one that demands a little patience.  Audiences looking for an immediate pay-off will be disappointed but those willing to give the film time to tell its story will be rewarded.  The action unfolds at a gradual but deliberate pace, one that will seem familiar to anyone who has spent any time in the rural South.  The film allows the audience the time to get to know both Fenty and Sarah and to truly understand the world in which the live.  In the end, when the film’s narrator comes to realize that Fenty is not an insignificant bystander but instead a man of strong character and morals, the audience won’t be surprised because the audience already knows.  Fenty has proven himself to the viewer.

Robert Duvall has described Tomorrow as being his favorite of the many films in which he’s appeared.  (The film came out the same year that Duvall co-starred in The Godfather.)  Indeed, Duvall does give one of his best performances as the quiet but strong Fenty.  In many ways, the performance feels as if its descended from his film debut as Boo Radley in To Kill A Mockingbird.  Duvall gives an excellent performance as a man who can hide his emotions but not his decency.  Tomorrow is a film that requires patience but which still deserves to be better known.