Nobody's Fool

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

In my eyes quite possibly one of the most perfect movies ever made with a stellar cast acting as you would expect them to when you want them to and acting completely out of character when you'd least expect it and enjoy it most. Look for a brilliant Melanie Griffith, a brilliant Bruce Willis, a fantastic ensemble all around, and at the centre the wonderful Jessica Tandy and the immortal Paul Newman in the role of his life. There is a point to this movie, painted in such subtle brush strokes that you just have to exclude all else and - what can I say - enjoy it, and let it warm your heart.

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.

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.

I have a theory that everyone remains a teenager until they day they die. Not the teenagers of the "Porky" franchise or the airheads of "Clueless" necessarily, but the mature, emotionally headstrong old souls of "The Breakfast Club" and "Flirting". Some grown-up teenagers are more jaded, considerate, and successful than others, while the remaining irresponsible hooligans look like adults but, in a "Shallow Hal"-ish twist, are actually fifteen- year-olds still in search of an identity. Look at those middle-aged men and women with graying hair taking your order at Wendy's: are they not a regretful little girl or boy who doesn't quite realize they're trapped in an adult's body?

Sully (Paul Newman) belongs in the camp of the charismatic loners who never took the time to accept their responsibilities and actually grow up. He has freelanced in the construction industry his entire life, most recently making the most of his aging body by suing Carl Roebuck (Bruce Willis), the local contractor, to get extra pocket change. Years ago, Sully left his family at an important time, leaving his now grown son (Dylan Walsh) emotionally stunted, his ex-wife understandably jilted — why he did it is hard to explain. Commitment was never very attractive to him, and having a family hardly supplemented his lone wolf instincts. Part of his psyche is tarnished by guilt, but the other side reminds him, time and time again, that being a father, a husband, was never for him anyway.

Currently, Sully rooms with his former eighth grade teacher, the elderly Beryl Peoples (Jessica Tandy), and passes the time doing dirty work around town and flirting with Carl's long suffering wife (Melanie Griffith). This has been his routine for years, decades even. So when his son comes to town, his wife and kids in tow, Sully is forced, after years of ignoring his most personal problems, to decide whether or not he wants to make up for lost time and finally become the father his son deserved, or ignore the facts and continue living in his own form of sheltered reality.

Paul Newman, even when playing the bad guy (a rare case), has never done anything besides be likable. In "Cool Hand Luke", he was a should-have-been tarnished anti-hero; in "The Verdict", he was an alcoholic grouch who felt it necessary to punch Charlotte Rampling right in the kisser after she betrayed him. Fact is, even when portraying a man at his lowest point, Newman has always been the guy you want to be friends with, the guy who wish was your father, your uncle, your grandfather. There is something starkly humble, and believably all-around good, about him, on screen or off.

In "Nobody's Fool", he plays a hustler we should, in our good senses, despise. Every character trait that shapes Sully is negative; what good has he done in his life besides make friends with barflies and keep his former teacher company? But damn it all to hell: it's impossible not to root for anyone portrayed by Newman. The film finds him nearing seventy, on the last legs of his long career. But hardly aged is his ability to give a face for the everyman, and, yes, the man-children who weren't fantastic youths but, hesitant or not, want to make up for it. Does "Nobody's Fool" provide for one of Newman's greatest performances? It's hard to say: he doesn't have to stretch his abilities like he has had to in the past. What he does do, though, is remind us why he is the movie star Hollywood, I'm sorry to say, can hardly muster today.

Robert Benton, whose "The Late Show" has recently become a favorite of mine, writes and directs. A filmmaker who seems to specialize in the complexities of human relationships ("Kramer vs. Kramer", "Places of the Heart"), "Nobody's Fool" is masterful in its characterizations: near instantly, each character feels completely drawn, as if we have known them for years, as if we have heard all the town gossip that surrounds them. The knotty relationship between Sully and Toby Roebuck (Griffith) especially rings true — both are so fiercely independent that their flirting with one another comes less from a romantic place and more out of a desperate one. So unhappy are they that a mutual affection comforts their lonely ills. Romance, though? It requires too much commitment and dedication, and both have been too scorned by the past to do anything about their already shaky feelings.

The characters of "Nobody's Fool" are almost abominably flawed, but we find their scarred personas more soothing than bothersome. We feel like we know these people, as if we also live in North Bath and have nothing better to do besides confide in our neighbor. Benton and his actors bring a world of lonely hearts startlingly to life; as messed up as they are, we want to be lonely with them.