Essential Series – The Swimmer – Grindhouse Releasing

Posted on by skizzfan42@gmail.com

The Swimmer

Director: Frank Perry
Screenplay: Eleanor Perry
Minutes: 95
Year: 1968
Score: 8.13
Release: Grindhouse Releasing

When I was growing up I always thought that forty was the age to be considered Over the Hill, recently I was told that it is fifty, but I suspect this is on my mind because I am about 50 days away from my 40th birthday. I have been in a funk for the last few months. With this birthday coming, and my body growing acclimated to my anxiety medication few people would disagree with me if I said I have been a wreck. Then I watched the Swimmer.

From GrindhouseReleasing.com:

Grindhouse Releasing is proud to present the ultimate late-60s studio-produced cult film, THE SWIMMER. In his finest performance, Burt Lancaster stars as Ned Merrill, a man who confronts his destiny by swimming home, pool by pool, through the suburban nightmare of upper-class East Coast society. Based on the acclaimed short story by John Cheever, and directed by Frank Perry (DIARY OF A MAD HOUSEWIFE, MOMMIE DEAREST), THE SWIMMER is a film like no other, a feature-length TWILIGHT ZONE episode by way of THE NEW YORKER.

The new SWIMMER Blu-ray/DVD combo is packed with bonus features, including the debut of Oscar-winning film editor Chris Innis’ all-new 2 1/2 hour documentary THE STORY OF THE SWIMMER, praised as “miraculous” (Blu-ray.com) and “a fascinating Hollywood story.” (Mondo Digital)

First thing first, Grindhouse Releasing does dynamite work on a small scale. They have about 12 releases including the horror masterworks, Pieces, Cannibal Holocaust, The Beyond, and others. They have gone all out on their horror releases and they have fostered an interest for me to check out their other issues, with a primary attraction to The Swimmer starring Burt Lancaster. Several months ago I was at a convention, chatting with someone selling bootlegs of Turkish ripoff films (which is a story for another time) and he had all of the Grindhouse horror blu-rays and I asked him about The Swimmer and he said that he didn’t carry it because if was a fine single viewing film with little replay value.

The allure of The Swimmer would not let go and I finally knuckled down and ordered a copy. It arrived and I dropped what I was doing to spin it up.

I was crushed.

First off this movie is beyond excellent. I get what the booth dude was saying and that this movie is most assuredly a your mileage may vary film. If you watch the film too early in your life it may not click, and this is a massive shortcoming. But, if it hits your right between the eyes, and you find yourself in a vulnerable mental space, then it will knock you on your keister and unsure of everything your have chosen in your life.

I have to be vague because your journey watching the film should be blind. The poster logline, “When you talk about “The Swimmer” will you talk about yourself?” is perhaps that finest example of a poster quote sounding grandiose and hyperbolic only to leave you starring with empty eyes back at the sentence until your start to tear up because the greatest fears start to bubble up to the surface and you question every breath that you didn’t take. Or, at least I did.

Maybe stop here if you want to go in as unprepared as possible but I want to continue my thoughts and will do so under the scores.

Special Features

  • “The Story of ‘The Swimmer'”: a 150 minute documentary about the film.
  • Interview with Marge Champion
  • John Cheever Reads ‘The Swimmer’
  • Still Galleries
  • Title Sequence Outtakes
  • Filmographies
  • Trailers and TV Spots

Director: 10 – Cinematography: 9 – Edit: 7 – Parity: 3 – Main performance: 10 – Else performance: 5 – Score: 8 – Sound: 8 – Story: 10 – Script: 10 – Effects: 7 – Design: 8 – Costumes: 7 – Keeps interest: 10 – Lasting: 10

Okay, the preview for the movie makes it look like a stereotypical 1960s melodrama, which, don’t get me wrong, I love some Douglas Sirk which is what I went in expecting. What you get, however, is an aging man wandering through the memories of lives past, starting when meeting up with old high school chums at their backyard pool. As the trailers suggest he realizes that he is able to walk home taking a lap in each of eight pool between him and his house. You, the uninformed viewer, think that he is just a old guy looking for a new, pain free challenge, to remind himself that he is capable.

Slowly, stop by stop, Lancaster visits pools and neighbors who represent a different time period of his life. The creepiest, before the last few, was when he happened across the home of the woman who worked as the babysitter for Lancaster’s children. He gets her to join him on his quest. While they are walking she admits to always having a crush on Lancaster’s character. This is the first moment when I started to think that this movie was not all what I was expecting. It starts morphing from a melodrama into a psychological fantasy and Lancaster starts to break from reality.

From this point on you start to learn that the idealized life he has been touting doesn’t seem right as neighbors start to contradict some of what Lancaster says. It comes to a head when he finally reaches his destination and you, the viewer, realize that everything from the lighting to the climate have been slowing changing from the beginning of the film so subtly that I was caught off guard. Like I mentioned earlier, I was not in a good headspace for this ending which could by why it connects with me as well as it does. But, I can also see how it could be a miss for too many others which is why I cannot go so far as to calling it an essential release but I very strongly recommend the movie. Maybe be in a better mental health place first, but definitely check this out.

Eh, screw it, The Swimmer is officially an essential.