Just perfect...

How sad is this?

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

As I watched this movie again tonight, I was forced to the conclusion that this is really a second-rate play. ENDLESS speeches that do nothing with the English language. NO sense of dramatic arch. It's really a poor play.And then there are the three lead performances, by Ralph Richardson, Katherine Hepburn, and Jason Robarts. If anyone could turn a second-rate script into what you think is a masterpiece, indeed something not far short of Shakespeare itself, it is these three actors. They take the endless speeches in the last hour of the movie and, wringing everything out of every carefully enunciated word, they turn what is basically not far short of dross into pure acting gold. The endless speeches they deliver become masterpieces of acting. You really have to marvel at what they do with little more than nothing.So this movie is worth watching for the acting. But don't read the play. You'll wonder what you could possibly have seen in it.

Mary (Katharine Hepburn) and James Tyrone (Ralph Richardson) live with their adult sons Jamie (Jason Robards) and Edmund (Dean Stockwell). Their idyllic upper middle class facade hides alcohol and drug addictions by every member of this dysfunctional loving family. They pick at each other over the course of a day.Director Sidney Lumet puts a camera to this Eugene O'Neill play. These are some of the best ever movie actors doing some compelling work. They are firing off lines like sharp shooters with long range rifles. Nobody is missing a beat. Everybody is brilliant. However, that doesn't make it a compelling cinematic experience. Lumet keeps the play intact which limits its appeal. It becomes more of an act of endurance to stay engage with this family. Its single-minded tone really pushes the audience. Some may find familiarity with this unrelenting onslaught. Others may find comfort in simply walking away.

While it's hard to argue that "Long Day's Journey Into Night" is not a great play, it's also a very difficult production to watch--at least for me. O'Neill himself intended that no one would ever see the play for 25 years--and he left this instruction CLEARLY in his will (which has nevertheless ignored and published just a few years after his death). It's obvious he was writing the piece more as a form of self-therapy--writing about the demons of his youth. The characters in the play, despite name changes, were his parents, his brother and himself--with all their MANY, MANY sick problems. Like the characters in the play, they were struggling with addiction, mental illness and LOTS of co-dependence.The problem for me was that I simply didn't like watching so much sickness and dysfunction. I was a social worker and psychotherapist for many years and saw too much over the years--so much it practically tore me to pieces. So, because of my background, I had a horrible time watching it because I just don't want to see what I know is true of many folks. Sure, the play rings very true--but I can't stand watching a show that makes "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" look like a comedy!! So, yes, it is insightful and raw...but too raw for me. I have seen so much illness and sadness and dysfunction that I started to find myself tuning it out after a while. Life is just too short for me to watch this. This is a rare case when I cannot give a film a bad score (it is brilliant in many ways) but I also hated it. Perhaps you will find it more watchable.By the way, if you do watch the film, one thing to note is that in an oddly ironic twist, having Katharine Hepburn play in this film was very strange. After all, she lived with Spencer Tracy for many years and he was, at times, an incredibly vicious and angry alcoholic and must have used some of the same crazy coping strategies that the folks used in this film to deal with addiction.

There are many reviews here about this incredible work, and about Eugene Oneill's brilliance. I want only to add to these that this film contains the greatest acting performance in the history of films. Katharine Hepburn moves between intentions, emotions, layers, and states of mind at the speed of thought, with the greatest authenticity, range, and ease that has ever been captured on film. It is a masterpiece within a masterpiece, and shows one virtuoso creating an opportunity for another virtuoso to reach their ultimate expression. It is an unparalleled performance, it has no peers. The entire film is wonderful, with Oneill, Lumet, Richardson, Robards, and lovely Stockwell providing the framework for the best performance ever given by an on screen performer. Watch it.