Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (1987)

The Read

John Hughes wrote it as a comedy and it keeps quietly turning into something else — a film about loneliness and the effort of being decent to someone who is exhausting you. Steve Martin plays it tight; John Candy plays it wide open and then, in the last twenty minutes, does the thing that makes the whole picture land. It gets better as the years pile up. The Franklin Theatre is a restored single-screen room downtown, and comedies play differently in a full house — laughs stack rather than dissipate. A 7:30 show on the Friday of the holiday weekend, when nobody wants another meal and everyone is looking for something to do. Bring the relatives; this is the rare thing three generations will agree on.

The Room

The Franklin Theatre

419 Main St, Franklin TN

A restored 1937 Main Street theater that still anchors Franklin's downtown on nights when the right artist plays it.