Ironweed

Set during the Great Depression, Ironweed follows Francis Phelan, a former baseball player who has spent years drifting as an alcoholic vagrant. He returns to his hometown of Albany, New York, on Halloween after a long absence, accompanied by Helen Archer, a onetime radio singer who is now his companion in hardship and who is seriously ill. The two revisit a city where they once had families and prospects, and where Francis finds himself confronted by memories of the people he has lost and the deaths he holds himself responsible for.

Héctor Babenco directed the film, which followed his Kiss of the Spider Woman, and William Kennedy adapted the screenplay from his own novel. Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep star as Francis and Helen, with Carroll Baker, Michael O'Keefe, Diane Venora and Fred Gwynne among a credited cast of 52. The 27 million dollar production returned about 7 million dollars worldwide, a substantial shortfall. On IMDb the film holds a 6.7/10 critics' rating from 24 reviews, while TMDB users rate it 6.3/10 from 146 votes, a modest gap that suggests general audiences responded a little less warmly than critics did.