Simply Perfect

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

The acting in this movie is really good.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

The problem is that the river, dubbed "The Lucinda" after his wife by the central character, Neddy Merrill (Burt Lancaster), is a seriously broken and disrupted waterway that becomes increasingly unnavigable and more treacherous as the story proceeds. At first, Neddy 's relationship with his affluent Fairfield County neighborhood seems cordial enough but then it gradually deteriorates as the viewer observes that Neddy's standing in his community is not at all as it first appears. Even at the film's tragic end, we still aren't quite sure what it was that brought Neddy to financial, emotional, and spiritual ruin. The one positive aspect is that he is still physically as fit as a fiddle, having appeared for ninety minutes in nothing other than a skimpy, speedo-like swimsuit and, at one point, emerging in nothing at all when he visits a couple of nudist friends. If he wasn't going to reveal it all, why bother removing his suit in the first place? I know. It was too much for 1968, but Lancaster probably would have done it if he had the opportunity. Why the heck not at that point in his stunningly successful career? He was already on the top of the Hollywood world and deservedly so.With this viewing, I began thinking, as other reviewers suggest, that Neddy's unique adventure was nothing more than a horrible nightmare about failure itself. The only problem is that he didn't awaken at the end as Amy Irving gratefully did in the horror classic "Carrie". In this case, I am regrettably convinced that Neddy's adventure through the suburban swimming pools of Fairfield County was real and that his increasingly hostile encounters with his neighbors were not only in his imagination. That is what makes the film even more tragic--that Neddy is never freed from the humiliation and horror of his ordeal, as I so much want him to be. Unfortunately, it isn't until the end of the journey when he discovers the unbearable truth at long last."If you make believe hard enough that something is true, it's true for you," he advises the young boy with the empty swimming pool. These words reveal more than any others the disastrous state of denial and the state of mental breakdown that Neddy has reached. The complex and troubling predicament of the central character was very effectively augmented by the musical score of Marvin Hamlisch, his very first film composition. Burt Lancaster was so dedicated to this production that he paid $10,000 out of his own pocket, a sizeable sum in 1966, to finish the film. He considered this to be among the best films of his long, diverse career, and I think that I agree with him.No matter what the causes of Neddy Merrill's downfall actually might have been, he is only a human being, regardless of how flawed, as we all are, and we have nothing but compassion for him.

Everyone loves an alpha male, until you realize that we are just pawns in his self-serving story. He's the lead and he needs you to make him feel important.No one has mentioned this, but we heard that this film's lead used to make fun of his financially conservative childhood friend. The alpha male mocked the nerd. Now the nerd is super successful and the alpha male has fallen from grace.Everything comes easy to the alpha male. Without some regulating code or force larger than himself, he will usually indulge. That means stepping on others, belittling them, or using them. If they have outward charm to go along with their optimistic and fearless nature, they are hard to resist. We want to be them or be with them. I like one reviewer's notion that the pools were part of a cleansing process he needed to go through before returning home. I also like the idea that an optimistic dreamer would love to create a youthful adventure like this one on a gorgeous summer day. It's invigorating. I don't resent material prosperity, nor believe that it must produce a shallow lifestyle. Some suburbanites go to church and do volunteer work. Many feed the homeless and coach Little League. Prosperity is good, full American, and worthy of celebration. We don't know for sure that the friends he encounters are all shallow. There are some nudists and one callous braggart, but the others seem ok. Even the nudists are doing charity work. Lancaster is perfect here. He exudes well-being and optimism perhaps better than any actor could when necessary, and profound confusion and regret when that's appropriate. The longing in his eyes for something....perpetual youth, first love, eternal sunshine is truly moving. The orchestration was fine by me. It was a different time period. I agree with another reviewer that the leaping scene should have been cut short.What we never come to understand is why he was barefoot and shirtless in swimming trunks, before the idea ever came to him to swim through the neighborhood. Where did his day begin, and why didn't he bring at least a small backpack with belongings?His lack of attire makes me think that it was all a dream, yet I'm thankful they didn't reveal that. I'd rather be left wondering. The moral? Watch the story of football coach Joe Paterno, or those of O.J. or Bill Cosby. Your glory days can continue until the end, unless you make one too many crucial mistakes along the way. Then they won't just stop. They will come to a violent, crashing, tragic end, and your mistakes will obliterate the memory of everything you did to attain that glory.

This powerful film, had a huge effect on me, when i first saw it.I actually thought it was about swimming.Lancaster was made to play this part, and boy is he good in this fine work.A story of someone in a world of his own, who has blocked out reality, is superbly done, and with a great script. A film which hits the viewer like a ton of bricks at its end,and makes it compelling viewing. Avoid reading spoilers, as it will wreck your enjoyment of this excellent film.

Burt Lancaster as the world's most buff 55-year-old. He spends the entire movie in a pair of swimming trunks. A cross-section of 60s supporting players populate his odyssey through the swimming pools of the upper crust of Connecticut. The episodic structure leads to some relatively weak passages, but the music and Burt's dynamic, charismatic Candide-like ad executive keep things moving at a jaunty pace. Janice Rule is inhumanly sexy in a small, but pivotal role. Adapted from a John Cheever New Yorker short story, and a case study in delusion and denial."This is my hot dog wagon."