The Swimmer

Year:  1968

Director:  Frank Perry

Screenplay:   Eleanor Perry, based on the short story by "The Swimmer" by John Cheever

Starring:  Burt Lancaster, Janet Landgard, Janice Rule

Running Time:  95 minutes

Genre:  Drama 

Middle-aged businessman Ned Merrill (Lancaster) is visiting with some friends when he gets the idea to swim home, using the outdoor swimming pools of his neighbours as a makeshift "river".  As his journey progresses his interactions with his neighbours, become increasingly strained and confrontational, as it appears that they know troubling things about himself and his family that Ned either can't, or won't, remember.

Based on an acclaimed short story by John Cheever, which was first published in The New Yorker in 1964, this surreal film, did not do well on it's original release, and yet it's reputation has grown, and it has come to be seen as something of a cult film.  The film starts on a bright, sunny summer afternoon, with Ned Merrill, a fit, middle-aged man emerging from the forest, wearing only a set of swimming trunks.  Merrill comes across a pool party hosted by friends, all of whom are nursing hangovers, but still knocking back the gin and martinis.  They seem surprised, but happy to see Merrill, who has apparently been away somewhere (although it is not revealed where he has been or for how long).  Looking out over the valley that houses the wealthy, suburban neighbourhood, Merrill works out that all the various swimming pools make a kind of river, that he can use to go home.  Right from the start it becomes apparent that there is some secret which his friends know, but that Merrill is seemingly oblivious to.  The journey becomes increasingly uncomfortable, as it appears from his interactions with others that Merrill is in severe personal and financial difficulties, although the nature of it is never made clear.  It also becomes apparent that Merrill's family life is not as idyllic as he claims.  As the film progresses the weather seems to change as well, becoming increasingly colder and more autumnal.  If you want to plunge in the deep end, you could read the film as being about American masculinity, the middle-class, suburban life, middle-aged disillusionment, or anything.  While the film may be too strange for some tastes, it has a strange, nightmarish power, with scenes such as Merrill's frantic dash across a busy motorway, a busy public pool becoming a wet and wild inferno, and the powerful final image packing a punch that lingers for a long time.  Burt Lancaster, who spends the entire film barefoot and clad only in swimming trunks, gives a powerful performance as a man who falls apart before our eyes, and what starts as a seeming jape becoming a grim odyssey into a suburban heart of darkness.  Lancaster subsequently rated The Swimmer as his best film.  The film boasts an impressive score by Marvin Hamlisch, and features the acting debut of comedian Joan Rivers.  

Burt Lancaster in The Swimmer