Any movie that takes place over the course of just one day can tend to drag unless it's filled with non-stop action. This film is no exception. If you love Acting with a capital "A" over Action, this is your film.
What makes this a movie worth seeing are the actors; Dustin Hoffman, Barbara Harris, and Jack Ward all turn in supreme performances. Even the bit parts are well-written and equally well-acted. The dialogue is sharp, witty and sadly comic.
Dustin Hoffman plays a highly successful songwriter who suffers from insomnia and the dementia it brings as he looks back on the relationships he's had throughout his life, hoping to break his loneliness.
Hoffman does an excellent job of portraying a creative genius, one whose creativity is so abundant he seems unable to turn it off. In most of the scenes, Hoffman is strumming a guitar, singing under his breath, presumably writing a new song with each emotion he feels at any given moment. Because the music that flows through him occupies so much of his brain, he seems unable to focus on human relationships and by middle age the loneliness catches up with him.
Hoffman drifts in and out of reality. Deciding which scenes are real, and which are his imagination is up to the viewer. Or as Hoffman tells his psychiatrist "Why should I come back to reality? What's it ever done for me?"
It should also be noted that as much as Simon and Garfunkel did for "The Graduate," so does this film's soundtrack accentuate the overall feel of the movie with music from Ray Charles and Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show.
