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The Swimmer (1968),
Director: Richard Lester (and Sidney Pollack-uncredited), rated PG
When you talk
about "The Swimmer" you will talk about yourself?
  Starring:
Burt Lancaster, Janet Landgard, Janice Rule, Joan Rivers, Tony
Bickley, Marge Champion, Kim Hunter, Charles Drake, Bernie Hamilton
DML Rating:
★★★★★★★★☆☆
- great
"Do you really think
its that easy? Of course, everything's always been easy for you.
Hasn't it? You could always get a cab in the rain, a woman into
bed. God knows I was easy enough to get." - Shirley
Abbott
Why watch this?
This is one of Lancaster's most underrated performances.
Plot Summary:
Ned Merrill, in his dark blue swim trunks, emerges from the
woods and visits the pool of people he knows. He has an odd
idea: to swim all the pools in one day that are in a line to his
own home. He is fit and confident, if not a bit quixotic. As the
day progresses, things get darker and darker. One pool at at
time, we learn the kind of man Ned really is, and it's a painful
revelation.
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Dad's Preview:
This satirical film plays like a modern allegory on several fronts: the Connecticut
snobbery of the wealthy suburbs, Ned Merrill's inflated opinion
of himself, how Ned treated the women in
his life, and his inability to face the results of his shallow
life. This
purposefully ambiguous puzzle is being constructed piece by
piece, all the way to its shocking final revelation. This is an
under-appreciated Lancaster cult classic. |
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Horizon Pictures;
Columbia Pictures |
