Saturday, December 13, 2025
Jay Kelly (2025) [R] ****
A film review by Brian Tallerico for RogerEbert.com on Dec. 4, 2025.
Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly is a study of a man in the middle of a personality crisis who worries that he doesn’t have one, only the personalities which fictional characters and the glory of celebrity have granted him. It’s a deeply meta film, a movie that uses as its foundation what we know of its star, George Clooney, one of the few leading men who can coexist in the same frame with images of legends like Paul Newman and Marcello Mastroianni and we don’t immediately reject the idea. Clooney knows a thing or two about not being able to walk through public spaces without being mobbed and, one presumes, about how much the life of an actor pulls people away from other things in their lives, like friends and family.
For a story of a guy who’s willing to get messy for the first time in years, it’s an overly clean piece of screenwriting, one that too often lets its A-list star play ideas instead of a character. But there’s enough to like here to forgive a film whose ambition exceeds its reach, both in some of those ideas and a flawless supporting cast, especially another fantastic turn from Adam Sandler.
Jay Kelly opens with its titular character (Clooney) finishing his latest production, as Baumbach and his co-writer Emily Mortimer (who also has a small role) wonderfully sketch their two male leads through their work. Kelly seems to be tapping into something true as he films the emotional death scene of his character. Still, there’s a common actorly insecurity underneath, especially as he asks his director for reassurance about whether they should try again. Meanwhile, Jay’s manager Ron (Sandler) uses the same tone to comfort Jay that we just heard him using with his daughter on the phone. For Ron, Jay is almost like another child, someone whose needs are prioritized over his own, and whose insecurities need to be assuaged. He might even be Ron’s favorite child. He’s the one who pays the bills.
A series of events rocks Jay Kelly’s pattern of movie shoots and red carpets (and, by extension, Ron’s). First, Jay discovers that his daughter, Daisy (Grace Edwards), is leaving for the summer, the one he thought they would spend together. She’s off to Northern Italy, where, coincidentally, an arts festival is being held at which Jay was supposed to receive a tribute. Jay will be on his own, and we discover later that he has a borderline-estranged relationship with his older daughter, Jessica (Riley Keough, so phenomenal in just a few scenes). He’s going to be alone, although, in a funny repeated bit in which Jay is handed drinks by silent assistants after insisting he’s always alone, the celebrity alone is different than yours or mine.
A bigger shift in Jay’s personality starts to quake when he learns that the director who gave him his break, Peter Schneider (Jim Broadbent), has died. Jay remembers a Schneider at his home not long ago, practically begging to put his favorite actor’s name on his project to get funding. Jay declined. He never gave the man he owes much of his life his last shot.
Finally, Jay runs into an old friend at Peter’s funeral named Timothy (Billy Crudup, excellent as always in just one extended scene). The two go out for a drink, and what starts as playful memories of their twenties and what might have been gets dark when Timothy admits that he hates Jay. After all, Jay took his life. If Timothy hadn’t brought Jay to an audition in front of Peter Schneider, he might have gotten the job. The night ends in a flurry of bad, half-drunk choices that really send Jay spiraling. He’s not doing the next movie, he’s going to Italy to find his daughter and accept the tribute, and Ron and his publicist Liz (Laura Dern) are just going to have to keep up with him. If they can.
The first act of Jay Kelly, in which these emotional figures from Jay’s past descend on him like Scrooge’s ghosts, hints at a darker movie than the midsection, one in which Kelly travels across Italy by train to reunite with his daughter and the common people. Clooney captures the joy of an actor fascinated by those who celebrity has cordoned off from him. But the writing here dips into some odd valleys regarding his fellow travelers, including an aside about a purse theft that exists solely as a plot crutch later in the film. It’s a bit of a problem when a movie about a celebrity trying to meet real people and discover the true core inside him starts to feel calculated and manufactured. And that tone starts to infiltrate other aspects of the screenwriting, including characters played by Stacy Keach (Jay’s dad) and Patrick Wilson (Ron’s #2 client), who seem to exist solely as signposts for Jay’s journey of the soul.
The sense that too few of the supporting characters have been fleshed out is part of what makes Jay Kelly often feel a little too neat. It’s a film that works in part because it’s an actor we know looking at the traps of celebrity and the difficulty of playing yourself instead of a scripted character, but it also feels remarkably calculated. Part of that is intentional to make the undeniably powerful final lines hit with more force, but a lot of Jay Kelly feels as rehearsed as a celebrity’s sound bites at a junket. Even Nicholas Brittell’s lovely score and Linus Sandgren’s fluid cinematography add to the film’s often sterile tone when it should be a movie that’s rougher around the edges.
Thank the Celebrity God, then, for Adam Sandler, who steals the movie by feeling the most truthful. I would never purport to know Sandler’s complex emotional relationship with fame or with people in his life, but he understands, either through observation or experience, what it means to devote your life to someone in a power imbalance. Are Ron and Jay friends? They’ve been through it all together. But Jay pays Ron, and he’s not afraid to remind him of that. Doesn’t that automatically throw it off? Sandler perfectly embodies a guy who’s been hit by Jay’s emotional shrapnel over and over again. Every time Jay missed a school concert for a project, Ron probably did too. Rons don’t get tributes. It’s just another example of how good Sandler can be in the right material, his best performance since Uncut Gems (and a reminder of how good he was in Baumbach’s The Meyerowitz Stories).
There are several lines about the transparency of fame that pepper Jay Kelly. Peter’s son says at his funeral, My dad was never there. It’s something Jay’s daughters would say too, especially his older one. In one of the film’s most powerful emotional chapters, Jessica speaks of the pain of seeing her dad playing a loving parent on screen despite never feeling that at home. So does Jay find himself? Luckily, Baumbach, Mortimer, and Clooney refuse to give Jay Kelly too much of a redemption arc, ending on a note that feels more emotionally true than manipulative. It lands with a powerful sentiment that so many of us will feel when the end is near. If we’re as lucky as Jay Kelly. (Tallerico's rating: 3 out of 4 stars)
Labels: comedy, drama, filmmaking
IMDb 66/100
MetaScore (critics=67, viewers=55)
RottenTomatoes (critics=76, viewers=87)
Netflix
Tallerico's original review
For a story of a guy who’s willing to get messy for the first time in years, it’s an overly clean piece of screenwriting, one that too often lets its A-list star play ideas instead of a character. But there’s enough to like here to forgive a film whose ambition exceeds its reach, both in some of those ideas and a flawless supporting cast, especially another fantastic turn from Adam Sandler.
Jay Kelly opens with its titular character (Clooney) finishing his latest production, as Baumbach and his co-writer Emily Mortimer (who also has a small role) wonderfully sketch their two male leads through their work. Kelly seems to be tapping into something true as he films the emotional death scene of his character. Still, there’s a common actorly insecurity underneath, especially as he asks his director for reassurance about whether they should try again. Meanwhile, Jay’s manager Ron (Sandler) uses the same tone to comfort Jay that we just heard him using with his daughter on the phone. For Ron, Jay is almost like another child, someone whose needs are prioritized over his own, and whose insecurities need to be assuaged. He might even be Ron’s favorite child. He’s the one who pays the bills.
A series of events rocks Jay Kelly’s pattern of movie shoots and red carpets (and, by extension, Ron’s). First, Jay discovers that his daughter, Daisy (Grace Edwards), is leaving for the summer, the one he thought they would spend together. She’s off to Northern Italy, where, coincidentally, an arts festival is being held at which Jay was supposed to receive a tribute. Jay will be on his own, and we discover later that he has a borderline-estranged relationship with his older daughter, Jessica (Riley Keough, so phenomenal in just a few scenes). He’s going to be alone, although, in a funny repeated bit in which Jay is handed drinks by silent assistants after insisting he’s always alone, the celebrity alone is different than yours or mine.
A bigger shift in Jay’s personality starts to quake when he learns that the director who gave him his break, Peter Schneider (Jim Broadbent), has died. Jay remembers a Schneider at his home not long ago, practically begging to put his favorite actor’s name on his project to get funding. Jay declined. He never gave the man he owes much of his life his last shot.
Finally, Jay runs into an old friend at Peter’s funeral named Timothy (Billy Crudup, excellent as always in just one extended scene). The two go out for a drink, and what starts as playful memories of their twenties and what might have been gets dark when Timothy admits that he hates Jay. After all, Jay took his life. If Timothy hadn’t brought Jay to an audition in front of Peter Schneider, he might have gotten the job. The night ends in a flurry of bad, half-drunk choices that really send Jay spiraling. He’s not doing the next movie, he’s going to Italy to find his daughter and accept the tribute, and Ron and his publicist Liz (Laura Dern) are just going to have to keep up with him. If they can.
The first act of Jay Kelly, in which these emotional figures from Jay’s past descend on him like Scrooge’s ghosts, hints at a darker movie than the midsection, one in which Kelly travels across Italy by train to reunite with his daughter and the common people. Clooney captures the joy of an actor fascinated by those who celebrity has cordoned off from him. But the writing here dips into some odd valleys regarding his fellow travelers, including an aside about a purse theft that exists solely as a plot crutch later in the film. It’s a bit of a problem when a movie about a celebrity trying to meet real people and discover the true core inside him starts to feel calculated and manufactured. And that tone starts to infiltrate other aspects of the screenwriting, including characters played by Stacy Keach (Jay’s dad) and Patrick Wilson (Ron’s #2 client), who seem to exist solely as signposts for Jay’s journey of the soul.
The sense that too few of the supporting characters have been fleshed out is part of what makes Jay Kelly often feel a little too neat. It’s a film that works in part because it’s an actor we know looking at the traps of celebrity and the difficulty of playing yourself instead of a scripted character, but it also feels remarkably calculated. Part of that is intentional to make the undeniably powerful final lines hit with more force, but a lot of Jay Kelly feels as rehearsed as a celebrity’s sound bites at a junket. Even Nicholas Brittell’s lovely score and Linus Sandgren’s fluid cinematography add to the film’s often sterile tone when it should be a movie that’s rougher around the edges.
Thank the Celebrity God, then, for Adam Sandler, who steals the movie by feeling the most truthful. I would never purport to know Sandler’s complex emotional relationship with fame or with people in his life, but he understands, either through observation or experience, what it means to devote your life to someone in a power imbalance. Are Ron and Jay friends? They’ve been through it all together. But Jay pays Ron, and he’s not afraid to remind him of that. Doesn’t that automatically throw it off? Sandler perfectly embodies a guy who’s been hit by Jay’s emotional shrapnel over and over again. Every time Jay missed a school concert for a project, Ron probably did too. Rons don’t get tributes. It’s just another example of how good Sandler can be in the right material, his best performance since Uncut Gems (and a reminder of how good he was in Baumbach’s The Meyerowitz Stories).
There are several lines about the transparency of fame that pepper Jay Kelly. Peter’s son says at his funeral, My dad was never there. It’s something Jay’s daughters would say too, especially his older one. In one of the film’s most powerful emotional chapters, Jessica speaks of the pain of seeing her dad playing a loving parent on screen despite never feeling that at home. So does Jay find himself? Luckily, Baumbach, Mortimer, and Clooney refuse to give Jay Kelly too much of a redemption arc, ending on a note that feels more emotionally true than manipulative. It lands with a powerful sentiment that so many of us will feel when the end is near. If we’re as lucky as Jay Kelly. (Tallerico's rating: 3 out of 4 stars)
Labels: comedy, drama, filmmaking
IMDb 66/100
MetaScore (critics=67, viewers=55)
RottenTomatoes (critics=76, viewers=87)
Netflix
Tallerico's original review
If you enjoy the film Jay Kelly I invite you to watch the 51-minute Netflix documentary The Making of Jay Kelly. Writer / director Noah Baumbach, George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Laura Dern, co-writer Emily Mortimer and others share behind-the-scenes insights from the first shot through the final line.
As you watch it, you will appreciate that there were no special effects used in the film; everything was physical, constructed on movie sets: Jay Kelly's home, the private jet, the railroad car, all of it was physical. And the music was recorded on analog tape. None of it is digital.
But the most remarkable thing is to appreciate that while this is Jay Kelly's reality, it is also George Clooney's reality, and the viewer gains a new appreciation for what it means to be a movie star - the rewards and also the sacrifices.
Tuesday, December 2, 2025
A Walk in the Woods (2015) [R] ***
A film review by James Berardinelli for ReelViews.net on Sept. 4, 2015.
A couple of old guys taking a walk on the Appalachian Trail - it doesn't sound like a winning motion picture formula and, as it turns out, it isn't. Like all road trip movies, the success (or lack thereof) of A Walk in the Woods relies heavily on the chemistry between the two leads, in this case Robert Redford and Nick Nolte. And, although both men do a reasonable job inhabiting their characters, as an odd couple, they don't click. There's something missing. Maybe if this had been made 20 years ago by Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon. Or even 10 years ago, as originally planned, with Redford and Paul Newman…
A Walk in the Woods is surprisingly funny at times but, like many comedies, it runs out of steam about halfway through. Some of the humor is unexpectedly lowbrow, at least insofar as anything with Redford could be considered lowbrow. The iconic actor generally takes the high road, leaving the crass comments and physical slapstick to Nolte. There are some clever, witty one-liners. I found myself laughing more than once or twice but the jokes, like the movie as a whole, lack staying power. The first half is significantly more enjoyable than the second.
The narrative is more concerned with the predictable mismatched buddies interaction between Redford's Bill Bryson and Nolte's Stephen Katz than it is with the terrain they're crossing. Last year's Wild, with Reese Witherspoon, did a better job illustrating the perils of traveling the more than 2100-mile wilderness path from Georgia to Maine. Here, things like bears, slips and falls, and bad weather serve as punchlines. Following the road movie formula, A Walk in the Woods is divided into clearly delineated episodes: being trapped in the company of the most annoying hiker to walk the earth, flirting with an attractive motel owner, etc. The film also has a message Yoda would disagree with: trying is what really matters.
Bryson, a renowned travelogue author, decides to walk the Appalachian Trail on a whim - perhaps it's a delayed mid-life crisis or maybe he's thinking of a bucket list. His wife, Catharine (Emma Thompson), won't let him make the hike alone. After sending out feelers to most of his old friends and striking out, he is forced to invite the only one with interest - a man he hasn't seen in decades and with whom he didn't part on the best of terms. By his own admission, Katz hasn't done much with his life, and is so out-of-shape, it looks like he might have trouble hiking for a mile, let alone 2100+ of them. Together, the codgers hop on a plane to Georgia and the odyssey begins.
The screenplay was loosely adapted from Bill Bryson's nonfiction book and is directed by Ken Kwapis, who has an extensive TV resume to go along with a few big screen titles (for example, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants). There are times when one gets the sense Kwapis wants to capture the majesty of the trail but, even though there are some spectacular mountain shots, the postcard moments don't last long enough to inspire awe. Added to that, there's an instance in which shoddy production design undermines a scene. With ceramic rocks and an awful matte painting in the background, this key sequence is so obviously studio-bound that it becomes a distraction.
Decades removed from being considered a heartthrob, Redford is still able to command the camera's attention with his innate charisma and likability. He's a good foil for Nolte's oafishness; it's surprising the two don't mesh better in an oil-and-water fashion. The lighthearted tone keeps A Walk in the Woods from becoming too dour and, in contrast with other wilderness adventure movies (like the aforementioned Wild and the similarly-titled Into the Wild), there's never a sense that Nature is more than a cantankerous prankster. The message about mortality is underplayed - older people may be spry of mind but their bodies often don't cooperate. Any bittersweet element this might have injected into the proceedings is quickly washed away by a jokey turn. The film adamantly rejects being serious for more than a passing moment. A Walk in the Woods is pleasant but inconsequential, a passing diversion rather than a worthy cinematic destination. (Berardinelli's rating: 2.5 stars out of 4)
Labels: adventure, biography, comedy, drama, Robert Redford
IMDb: 64/100
MetaScore (critics=51, viewers=57)
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=46, viewers=66)
Blu-ray
Berardinelli's original review
A Walk in the Woods is surprisingly funny at times but, like many comedies, it runs out of steam about halfway through. Some of the humor is unexpectedly lowbrow, at least insofar as anything with Redford could be considered lowbrow. The iconic actor generally takes the high road, leaving the crass comments and physical slapstick to Nolte. There are some clever, witty one-liners. I found myself laughing more than once or twice but the jokes, like the movie as a whole, lack staying power. The first half is significantly more enjoyable than the second.
The narrative is more concerned with the predictable mismatched buddies interaction between Redford's Bill Bryson and Nolte's Stephen Katz than it is with the terrain they're crossing. Last year's Wild, with Reese Witherspoon, did a better job illustrating the perils of traveling the more than 2100-mile wilderness path from Georgia to Maine. Here, things like bears, slips and falls, and bad weather serve as punchlines. Following the road movie formula, A Walk in the Woods is divided into clearly delineated episodes: being trapped in the company of the most annoying hiker to walk the earth, flirting with an attractive motel owner, etc. The film also has a message Yoda would disagree with: trying is what really matters.
Bryson, a renowned travelogue author, decides to walk the Appalachian Trail on a whim - perhaps it's a delayed mid-life crisis or maybe he's thinking of a bucket list. His wife, Catharine (Emma Thompson), won't let him make the hike alone. After sending out feelers to most of his old friends and striking out, he is forced to invite the only one with interest - a man he hasn't seen in decades and with whom he didn't part on the best of terms. By his own admission, Katz hasn't done much with his life, and is so out-of-shape, it looks like he might have trouble hiking for a mile, let alone 2100+ of them. Together, the codgers hop on a plane to Georgia and the odyssey begins.
The screenplay was loosely adapted from Bill Bryson's nonfiction book and is directed by Ken Kwapis, who has an extensive TV resume to go along with a few big screen titles (for example, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants). There are times when one gets the sense Kwapis wants to capture the majesty of the trail but, even though there are some spectacular mountain shots, the postcard moments don't last long enough to inspire awe. Added to that, there's an instance in which shoddy production design undermines a scene. With ceramic rocks and an awful matte painting in the background, this key sequence is so obviously studio-bound that it becomes a distraction.
Decades removed from being considered a heartthrob, Redford is still able to command the camera's attention with his innate charisma and likability. He's a good foil for Nolte's oafishness; it's surprising the two don't mesh better in an oil-and-water fashion. The lighthearted tone keeps A Walk in the Woods from becoming too dour and, in contrast with other wilderness adventure movies (like the aforementioned Wild and the similarly-titled Into the Wild), there's never a sense that Nature is more than a cantankerous prankster. The message about mortality is underplayed - older people may be spry of mind but their bodies often don't cooperate. Any bittersweet element this might have injected into the proceedings is quickly washed away by a jokey turn. The film adamantly rejects being serious for more than a passing moment. A Walk in the Woods is pleasant but inconsequential, a passing diversion rather than a worthy cinematic destination. (Berardinelli's rating: 2.5 stars out of 4)
Labels: adventure, biography, comedy, drama, Robert Redford
IMDb: 64/100
MetaScore (critics=51, viewers=57)
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=46, viewers=66)
Blu-ray
Berardinelli's original review
Friday, November 28, 2025
The Swimmer (1968) [PG] *****
A film review by Roger Ebert on July 2, 1968
The Swimmer is the story of a man who begins at the dawn of a new day to swim in the backyard pool of some friends. The water is cool and fresh, and the day is beautiful.
As he has a drink with his friends, it occurs to him that a string of other backyard pools reaches all the way across the valley to his own home. Why not swim every one — swim all the way home, as it were? This sounds like a glorious adventure, and indeed it starts but that way. He even meets a lovely girl who agrees to come along on the journey.
Some of the pool owners are happy to see him. Others hate him. One is a bitter young woman who loved him once. We learn something about this man’s life at every poolside, until finally we are able to piece together a story of his disgrace and failure.
The Swimmer begins as a perfectly realistic film. But somewhere along the way we realize it is an allegory, and the ending makes that clear. It is also a very stylized film. As the swimmer (Burt Lancaster) pauses beside each pool, his conversations with the owners sound real enough, and yet somehow they are very stiff, very correct, as if everybody were reading lines or this were a dream.
The photography contributes to this feeling. It is beautiful, but not joyful. It has the same nostalgia as Elvira Madigan or the snapshots in an old photo album. At every moment, we have the feeling that something tragic has already happened to these people we see smiling. And, of course, something has.
The Swimmer is based on a John Cheever story from the New Yorker, and it’s the sort of allegory the New Yorker favors. Like assorted characters by John Updike and J.D. Salinger, Cheever’s swimmer is a tragic hero disguised as an upper-class suburbanite. There are a lot of tragic heroes hidden in suburbia, I guess, perhaps because so many of them subscribe to the New Yorker. You are what you read.
One interesting thing about The Swimmer is that it manages so successfully to reproduce the feeling of a short story in the medium of film. It is a very literary movie, and by that I don’t mean the characters stand around talking to each other a lot. The film episodes are put together in a rather formal way, like a well-made short story, and there is none of the fluid movement between scenes that you usually expect in movies.
The movement of the film is from morning to dusk, from sunshine to rain, from youth to age and from fantasy to truth. It would also appear that the swimmer’s experiences are not meant to represent a single day, but a man’s life.
What we really have here, then, is a sophisticated retelling of the oldest literary form of all: the epic. A hero sets off on a journey. He has many strange adventures along the way, during which he learns the tragic nature of life. At last he arrives at his goal, older and wiser and with many a tale to tell. The journey Cheever’s swimmer makes has been made before in other times and lands by Ulysses, Don Quixote, Huckleberry Finn and Augie March.
Burt Lancaster is superb in his finest performance. In addition to being a fine actor, he is a plausible hero of the Charlton Heston and Kirk Douglas type. And a hero is needed here. We must believe in the swimmer’s greatness if we are to find his fate tragic.
There are also fine performances by Janice Rule (previously buried in Matt Helms and Westerns) as the mistress, by Janet Landgard, as the young girl, and by a host of character actors. The screenplay and direction are by Eleanor Perry and Frank Perry, respectively, and they are the same couple who made David and Lisa. Like that film, The Swimmer, is a strange, stylized work, a brilliant and disturbing one. (Roger Ebert's rating: 4 stars out of 4)
Trivia: Burt Lancaster always insisted this was his best and his favorite film of his career.
Although Frank Perry is credited as the director because of contractual reasons, he was fired by prducer Sam Spiegel over creative differences, after the first rough cut. Sydney Pollack took over and reshot a number of scenes, which contributed to the delay between filming in June, 1966 and the May, 1968 New York premiere.
Filming locations. The film was shot at a number of private homes in Fairfield, Stamford, Weston, Westport, and Wilton Connecticut.
Labels: drama
Internet Movie Database: 76/100
RottenTomatoes (critics=100%, viewers=83%)
Blu-ray (2014 release)
Blu-ray (2021 deluxe editon)
Blu-ray review by Brian Orndorf, March 24, 2014
Roger Ebert's original review
As he has a drink with his friends, it occurs to him that a string of other backyard pools reaches all the way across the valley to his own home. Why not swim every one — swim all the way home, as it were? This sounds like a glorious adventure, and indeed it starts but that way. He even meets a lovely girl who agrees to come along on the journey.
Some of the pool owners are happy to see him. Others hate him. One is a bitter young woman who loved him once. We learn something about this man’s life at every poolside, until finally we are able to piece together a story of his disgrace and failure.
The Swimmer begins as a perfectly realistic film. But somewhere along the way we realize it is an allegory, and the ending makes that clear. It is also a very stylized film. As the swimmer (Burt Lancaster) pauses beside each pool, his conversations with the owners sound real enough, and yet somehow they are very stiff, very correct, as if everybody were reading lines or this were a dream.
The photography contributes to this feeling. It is beautiful, but not joyful. It has the same nostalgia as Elvira Madigan or the snapshots in an old photo album. At every moment, we have the feeling that something tragic has already happened to these people we see smiling. And, of course, something has.
The Swimmer is based on a John Cheever story from the New Yorker, and it’s the sort of allegory the New Yorker favors. Like assorted characters by John Updike and J.D. Salinger, Cheever’s swimmer is a tragic hero disguised as an upper-class suburbanite. There are a lot of tragic heroes hidden in suburbia, I guess, perhaps because so many of them subscribe to the New Yorker. You are what you read.
One interesting thing about The Swimmer is that it manages so successfully to reproduce the feeling of a short story in the medium of film. It is a very literary movie, and by that I don’t mean the characters stand around talking to each other a lot. The film episodes are put together in a rather formal way, like a well-made short story, and there is none of the fluid movement between scenes that you usually expect in movies.
The movement of the film is from morning to dusk, from sunshine to rain, from youth to age and from fantasy to truth. It would also appear that the swimmer’s experiences are not meant to represent a single day, but a man’s life.
What we really have here, then, is a sophisticated retelling of the oldest literary form of all: the epic. A hero sets off on a journey. He has many strange adventures along the way, during which he learns the tragic nature of life. At last he arrives at his goal, older and wiser and with many a tale to tell. The journey Cheever’s swimmer makes has been made before in other times and lands by Ulysses, Don Quixote, Huckleberry Finn and Augie March.
Burt Lancaster is superb in his finest performance. In addition to being a fine actor, he is a plausible hero of the Charlton Heston and Kirk Douglas type. And a hero is needed here. We must believe in the swimmer’s greatness if we are to find his fate tragic.
There are also fine performances by Janice Rule (previously buried in Matt Helms and Westerns) as the mistress, by Janet Landgard, as the young girl, and by a host of character actors. The screenplay and direction are by Eleanor Perry and Frank Perry, respectively, and they are the same couple who made David and Lisa. Like that film, The Swimmer, is a strange, stylized work, a brilliant and disturbing one. (Roger Ebert's rating: 4 stars out of 4)
Trivia: Burt Lancaster always insisted this was his best and his favorite film of his career.
Although Frank Perry is credited as the director because of contractual reasons, he was fired by prducer Sam Spiegel over creative differences, after the first rough cut. Sydney Pollack took over and reshot a number of scenes, which contributed to the delay between filming in June, 1966 and the May, 1968 New York premiere.
Filming locations. The film was shot at a number of private homes in Fairfield, Stamford, Weston, Westport, and Wilton Connecticut.
Labels: drama
Internet Movie Database: 76/100
RottenTomatoes (critics=100%, viewers=83%)
Blu-ray (2014 release)
Blu-ray (2021 deluxe editon)
Blu-ray review by Brian Orndorf, March 24, 2014
Roger Ebert's original review
Inside Daisy Clover (1965) [PG] ***
A film review by Randy Miller III for blu-ray.com on July 4, 2020.
Movies about Hollywood's dark underbelly were nothing new by 1965, but Inside Daisy Clover explores the subject through a young woman who's quite literally pulled off the streets to be the next big thing. Former child star Natalie Wood portrays Daisy Clover, who lives with her mom near the Santa Monica Pier and may just be the least convincing 15-year-old ever portrayed on film. She ekes out a living selling fake autographs but loves singing, and is surprised to learn that the head of a major studio, Raymond Swan (Christopher Plummer), is interested in a demo record she sent. After a limo ride to Swan Studios, the young tomboy is caught off guard by his cold and uncaring demeanor: Raymond tears her down while promising to deliver Hollywood's new rising star to the unsuspecting masses. She's charmed by fellow studio actor Wade Lewis (Robert Redford) and they develop a whirlwind romance, which ends up doubling as a microcosm of her brief time in the spotlight: it's very exciting, a little scary, and doesn't end well.
It sounds compelling enough on paper, but Inside Daisy Clover is a clear case of a film whose execution doesn't quite measure up to its ambition. Very little seems wrong at first glance: Wood acquits herself nicely (except for that age discrepancy -- though still youthful, she was close to thirty during production), there are a number of genuine twists and turns, and the supporting performances by Plummer and Redford are great. Other small parts, such as Raymond's wife Melora (Katharine Bard) and Daisy's soon-to-be-estranged mother Lucile (Ruth Gordon) are filled out nicely too. The biggest problems lie with Inside Daisy Clover's structure and a lack of ability to sell its own material: Wood's character is never all that convincing as the next big thing, nor is her rise to fame ever shown from a public perspective. The extremely insular nature of her journey ends up working against it, keeping outsiders at arm's length while never making a believable sales pitch. Even Daisy's trademark song, which is repeated ad nauseum, is forgettable... and to make matters worse, all of Wood's original vocals were re-recorded by singer Jackie Robin Ward.
Of course, that's not to say that Inside Daisy Clover is without merit... even aside from a few highlights mentioned above, most of which are related to the lead and supporting performances. Any and all scenes between Wood and Redford are easily among the film's best, as they seem to best capture that perfect balance of excitement mixed with a little bit of uneasiness. André Previn's original score and Charles Lang's cinematography are both excellent, often working double duty to capture the atmosphere of 1930s Santa Monica and the surrounding area. For these reasons, the film also serves as an invaluable time capsule: even though many parts are made up to reflect that earlier decade in which Inside Daisy Clover takes place, there's an undeniable charm to the signage, store fronts, and much quieter atmosphere that seem to evoke the 1960s as well. Those with Californian roots may enjoy the film for that reason alone. But aside from die-hard fans of the cast and setting, this one's tough to recommend sight unseen.
Labels: drama, music, Robert Redford, romance
IMDb 61/100
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=31, viewers=68)
Blu-ray
It sounds compelling enough on paper, but Inside Daisy Clover is a clear case of a film whose execution doesn't quite measure up to its ambition. Very little seems wrong at first glance: Wood acquits herself nicely (except for that age discrepancy -- though still youthful, she was close to thirty during production), there are a number of genuine twists and turns, and the supporting performances by Plummer and Redford are great. Other small parts, such as Raymond's wife Melora (Katharine Bard) and Daisy's soon-to-be-estranged mother Lucile (Ruth Gordon) are filled out nicely too. The biggest problems lie with Inside Daisy Clover's structure and a lack of ability to sell its own material: Wood's character is never all that convincing as the next big thing, nor is her rise to fame ever shown from a public perspective. The extremely insular nature of her journey ends up working against it, keeping outsiders at arm's length while never making a believable sales pitch. Even Daisy's trademark song, which is repeated ad nauseum, is forgettable... and to make matters worse, all of Wood's original vocals were re-recorded by singer Jackie Robin Ward.
Of course, that's not to say that Inside Daisy Clover is without merit... even aside from a few highlights mentioned above, most of which are related to the lead and supporting performances. Any and all scenes between Wood and Redford are easily among the film's best, as they seem to best capture that perfect balance of excitement mixed with a little bit of uneasiness. André Previn's original score and Charles Lang's cinematography are both excellent, often working double duty to capture the atmosphere of 1930s Santa Monica and the surrounding area. For these reasons, the film also serves as an invaluable time capsule: even though many parts are made up to reflect that earlier decade in which Inside Daisy Clover takes place, there's an undeniable charm to the signage, store fronts, and much quieter atmosphere that seem to evoke the 1960s as well. Those with Californian roots may enjoy the film for that reason alone. But aside from die-hard fans of the cast and setting, this one's tough to recommend sight unseen.
Labels: drama, music, Robert Redford, romance
IMDb 61/100
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=31, viewers=68)
Blu-ray
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