A DROWNING MAN

Tomorrow (November 7, if I post this on time), Toronto’s Trash Palace is showing a print of Frank Perry’s The Swimmer. If you’re in the city, do yourself a favour: go see it. If you’re elsewhere (I understand the internets now extend beyond the GTA), do yourself a favour: go rent it.

Based on the John Cheever story of the same name, The Swimmer stars Burt Lancaster as Ned “Neddy” Merril, denizen of the affluent suburbs of Westchester. His diminutive nickname is a metanym, I think, for the entire film - the society being portrayed, the plot that unfolds and the man at the centre of it all. The false camaraderie it implies, the superficial bullet-point relationships and false-front (self) images unfold over the course of the film, until their weight overwhelms even the barrel-chested Lancaster.

But maybe I’m getting ahead of myself.

The premise of the movie is pretty simple, if unusual. As the film opens, Lancaster is at a pool/cocktail party at the Westerhazy’s. When it comes time to leave, he hits upon a novel idea, which I’d perhaps best let him explain:

NEDDY

Well now, with the Grahams there's a string of pools that curves clear across the county to our house. Well look: the Grahams, the Lears, the Bunkers. Then over the ridge. Then a - portage through the Paston's riding ring to the - Hallorans and the Gilmartins. Then down Erewise Lane to the Biswangers, and then - Wait a minute, who's next? I can't think, I had it just a minute ago. Who is it? Well, who is it? Who's next to the Biswangers?

HELEN WESTERHAZY

Shirley Abbott.

NEDDY

Shirley Abbott. And across Route 424 to the recreation center pool, and up the hill and I'm home. Well don't you see? I just figured it out. If I take a sort of a dogleg to the southwest... I can swim home.

Which is exactly what he does over the rest of the film’s running time: portage from backyard to backyard, pool to pool, swimming a length in each. Along the way, things get a little weird.

Of course, you’d expect no less from director Frank Perry. Perry also helmed such notable cum notorious flicks as Ladybug, Ladybug (nuclear paranoia fabulism at its best), Last Summer (which is less a loss-of-innocence story than an annihilation-of-innocence story), Mommie Dearest (the first film to sweep the Razzies) and Hello Again (zombie Shelly Long? Comedy gold!), among others. Along with his collaborator and wife, screenwriter Eleanor Perry, he specialized in peeling away the veneer of polite society (impolite society, too, come to think of it) and showing his characters ugly things in beautiful ways.

The Swimmer definitely bears Perry’s stamp, but according to the interviews on Saturday Night at the Movies (god bless you Elwy Yost), he left the production due to creative differences. Several segments were re-shot after his departure, and a key scene, in which Neddy meets with his former mistress, was reportedly actually directed by an uncredited Sydney Pollack.

So, no support for auteur theory here. The Swimmer is definitely a team effort. It’s hard to go wrong with source material as strong as Cheever’s story, but a lot of credit definitely goes to Eleanor Perry. Cheever’s story covers fewer than 10 pages, and her 95-minute screenplay never feels stretched or repetitive. If the short story is the most challenging literary form, the feature film adaptation of a short story may very well be the most challenging task a screenwriter can undertake.

Which brings us to Burt Lancaster (Side note: you must also see The Killers, The Sweet Smell of Success and The Gypsy Moths). Lancaster is a no-fooling movie star, and almost every inch of him is in display in The Swimmer, in which the sum total of his wardrobe is a pair of swim trunks. How much farther can he strip, when he’s wearing nothing but a swimsuit? You’d be surprised.

Throughout the film, there are clues that things are not as they should be. Marigolds bloom out of season. People react strangely to ordinary topics of conversation, make seemingly incongruous offers and attack with apparent provocation. Pools are found dry and drained, houses for sale. It’s later than you think, and things are breaking down.

But what communicates this breakdown most remarkably is Lancaster’s physical acting in the film. (Side note two: I think physical acting is an underappreciated talent. Watch Peter Weller in the first two Robocop films, then watch anyone else play the part in any other Robocop franchise production; he’s the only one with the physical acting talent to make Robocop believable. Addendum to side note two: don’t watch Robocop 2, or any of the franchise’s other productions.) He peels away at his character with a limp, a slouch, a slowing pace, a shiver and a less frequent and less credible smile. But it’s not just a physical breakdown he’s showing us - it’s mental, emotional and societal one as well.

It’s a performance that hurts like a lungful of water, an evocation of what it feels like to go from swimming to drowning.

So, like I said, go see it.

Command+s.

Ian Driscoll thinks thy belly is like a heap of wheat, fenced about with lilies. And no, he’s not calling you fat.

(Science Fiction Editor James Schellenberg will be back next month)

Tags: acting , adaptation , burt lancaster , eleanor perry , elwy yost , film , film history , frank perry , hello again , john cheever , last summer , mommie dearest , physical acting , razzies , robocop , saturday night at the movies , shelly long , swimmer , sydney pollack , The Gypsy Moths , The Killers , The Sweet Smell of Success , trash palace