Raggedy Man

A small Texas town during the Second World War. Nita is divorced, raising two sons alone and working as a telephone operator at the exchange. The job ties her to the house; leaving town is effectively forbidden and everyone watches her. A friendship with a sailor on shore leave turns quickly into gossip. At the same time someone in the town, whom nobody names, is following her from a distance. It is Jack Fisk's first film as director; Fisk had worked for years as a production designer, and the physical texture of the town is the film's strongest quality. Sissy Spacek, Fisk's wife, carries it alone: how a divorced woman is watched in a small town is the real subject. Eric Roberts plays the sailor. The figure in the title is explained at the end and the narrative shifts register at that point, a shift that drew a divided response on release.