Nobody's Fool

The story about the redemption of Sully (Paul Newman) has a rough charm, well supplied by the setting and actors. North Bath feels like an updated Bedford Falls (minus George Bailey to save the day), a small town where citizens don't have a lot of choice in friends, so fences stay mended. They squabble and tease, but the talk is great fun, all quips and jabs and homespun wit.

Sully boards with Miss Beryl, whom Jessica Tandy imbues with equal parts elegance, grace, and steel. Bruce Willis is effortlessly funny as the shameless Carl Roebuck, Sully's boss and rival, and the serially unfaithful husband of Toby, played by Melanie Griffith stripped of sex-kitten mannerisms. She manages to be demure even when she flashes her perfect breasts at Sully. Pruitt Taylor Vince and Philip Seymour Hoffman bring plumb-dumb to sympathetic life, Vince with self-effacement, Hoffman with self-defense. And as Sully's family, Dylan Walsh and Alexander Goodwin are both utterly winning.

The problem is Sully. Not the performance; Newman is engaging. But Sully is one of those anti-heroes whom we are meant to like even though there's no good reason to. We're just supposed to go along with the crowd. Miss Beryl is protective of him (or tries to be). Toby enjoys flirting with him, and her husband Carl spars with him, but ultimately respects and hires him. He's given bad-boy stuff to do, like drugging a dog and driving on the sidewalk, but why? It isn't funny or entertaining, and it diminishes him.

Sully reunites with his son, Peter, whom he abandoned in infancy, totally: he hasn't seen the boy since. When Peter (now a father of two in a troubled marriage) asks why he left, all Sully does is mumble about his own bad marriage and then lay it on thick about his own childhood: his big "never sober" father who slaps his little mother hard enough to literally launch her across the room, then almost kills him when he intervenes. Brutality is amped to the max to jerk our tears, which is manipulation, not persuasion. My sympathies were firmly with Peter.

Child support is not mentioned, but given Sully's complete absence, his hand-to-mouth life, and his wife's remarriage, it's safe to assume he was a deadbeat dad. All in all, the way Sully is written, he's a loser. We're not supposed to notice, I assume, partly because everybody forgives him, but mostly because he's Paul Newman, who is loveable, which is cheating.

As he got older, Newman's talent displayed itself more and more easily. In this film, it's as if he puts on the role like a comfortable set of old clothes that fits him perfectly. His acting doesn't show - by which I mean, he becomes the character rather than acting it out in an obvious way. When you insert that smooth display into a well-written story that includes several other, excellent performances, you get a top-notch result. None of the directing or acting is lacking, nor does it ever feel forced or overdone. There's humor as well as sadness, small victories along with disappointments, and touching sentiment along with strength and honor. All in all, it's slice of life theatre done very well.

What a gem! Apparently this film did have a theatrical run, but I had never heard of it until I saw it on cable a few years ago. Paul Newman was, as always, masterful. So was Jessica Tandy. As unlikeable as Bruce Willis is, he is a great actor and does very well here. And even though it was a fairly small part, I think this is Melanie Griffith's best work ever. The script, directing, everything came together seamlessly. I highly rcommend this film. Grade: A

Newman is acting just perfectly in this small town movie in his role as a 60 years old man who has not achieved much in his life, but begins to realize this when his son, whom he hasn't seen since he left his family, shows up with his kids, Newman's grandsons. The complicated (or maybe not so complicated) married life of Willis and Griffith add to the plot. Some quite witty scenes and lines make you laugh heartily, although the film's general tone is more on the serious side.

Newman uses a lifetime of acting experience to give a burnished, affecting portrayal of Sully, a dysfunctional father and husband who is basically well-intentioned but has never been able to connect with anyone or live up to his responsibilities. His family arrives back in town and he begins the long-delayed process of reconnecting with his son and grandsons.

Like "Mr. & Mrs. Bridge" of a few years back, this is a low-key, slice-of-life drama, a type of film that can be deadly dull in the wrong hands but which in this case, under director Robert Benton's guidance, and aided by a fabulous script and wonderful cast, is totally engrossing.

The script is spare and lean and all the more effective for that. It never goes for heavy emotional effects, but makes its points in a powerfully understated way. The many moments of humor stand out in high relief. Excellent acting all around (this was one of Jessica Tandy's last films; also in the cast are Bruce Willis, a better actor than he is generally given credit for, and Melanie Griffith). The feeling of life in a down-at-the-heels northeast U.S. town in midwinter is superbly brought across; the movie has a real 'lived-in' atmosphere.

A definite A+.