Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Nice effects though.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

I was an accidental viewer who accidentally saw this, the most boring film in the history or movies.

Finally on my plate I got around to seeing 1988's romantic drama "The Accidental Tourist" for one I had high interest since I always enjoyed the work of Kathleen Turner and Geena Davis as both were very sexy screen ladies in their day and for what I've seen of the work of William Hurt it's above average so the chemistry made this picture a winner.The story based from an Anne Tyler best seller involves Macon Leary(William Hurt)as a writer who publishes travel guides and he gives advice on trips that people take and he has his own side baggage of emotions as still he's dealing with the freak murder of his son just a little boy. Plus he's just getting ready for a divorce from his trophy wife named Sarah(the elegant and attractive Kathleen Turner).Along the way this film becomes a new journey of life for Macon as it's a fun and tender film of love, life, regret, and stopping to reflect as Macon takes his time before changes happen. To spice things up Macon's a dog lover so when he meets his new dog sitter and trainer Muriel(Geena Davis)a sparkle is in her eyes for passion, slowly but surely it happens still Macon will sample his plate for romantic taste before he makes the choice between her or Sarah.The love triangle is back and fourth it shows and proves that passion can change and it shows that love travels and takes tours just like matters of the heart. Overall good well done serious film of change and making choices about matters of the heart.

This movie has a lot going for it. The acting is the best part: the three main characters - perhaps I should say the two main characters, the roles played by William Hurt and Kathleen Turner - are very three-dimensional. Those actors given their characters many dimensions, and it makes them interesting and sometimes surprising. Gena Davis also does a fine job with her role, but her character does tend to be a caricature at times.That is the problems with most of the rest of the characters: they are written as two-dimensional, and they too often come off as oddball caricatures. I'm sure those actors could have done better with a better script concerning them, but they didn't have the chance.Some of the moments are really remarkable, especially the scenes between Turner and Hurt. And then, some of the scenes are just wrong. The worst, for me, was the last 60 seconds of the movie, where Hurt's character meets Davis' character and the music swells: it screams "make the women in the audience happy" and seems like it was pasted on.Equally problematic is what leads to that: the second-last scene, between Turner and Hurt, where Hurt finally explains what he sees in Davis' character. It's very interesting and intelligent dialogue - her quirky character has allowed him to try to be someone different, to get out of his old, boring rut - but the movie never really showed us that. That, for me, was a real problem.A lot of this movie is very well done, and I recommend it. But a fair amount of it is facile caricature, and that may boor some viewers.

Accidental Tourist (1988)So, for starters, Geena Davis won a best supporting actress for this role. She is a surprising presence, but she is only a shadow, to me, of William Hurt's deceptively taut and perceptive role. Weakest of the three main actors is Kathleen Turner, who is brought far down from the energy she had, say, in "Peggy Sue Got Married" just two years earlier. This might be because Davis is lifted so high.The story is by Anne Tyler, who won awards and praise for her novel, as literature, before the movie. The hook implied by the title is just the starting point. Even though "Accidental Tourist" deals with totally, very, beautifully serious things, there is a kind of gleam to it all, a knowing despondency, as if the writer knew what tricks to use to make us feel deep things. And it's sort of okay, even at the end, which is improbable the way it is played out, but is emotionally really satisfying.I liked the movie a lot, for sure. It's about feelings and real people, without crime and violence, and I like all that. But maybe the Oscar might have gone to William Hurt, who pulls off a subtle role with absolutism. He nails the detached, patient, observant, fearful person that his character is. Geena Davis with all her idiosyncratic energy, and later with her more mainstream domesticity (the two are never resolved), is a perfect spark for his smolder. And it pulls together, most of the time, but there are oddities that are meant to be quaint and fun that throw it off course. The agent is awkward, the Leary family is like a comic idea that just makes the depth of the principles odd for their seriousness. And the sudden attempt at reconciliation seems improbable, at least with the knee-jerk way it comes off. The music is oddly repetitive and annoying if you notice it, too.One element, of course, that infects how you look at all this, is the role of the two children, the two sons. They make everything the adults do significant, even if still sometimes questionable. But hey, it's actually a soap opera, which I love, with emotions flying this way and that, and echoes of our own lives everywhere. So dive in and give it all a go. Even it feels slow at times, give it a moment. Hurt, who isn't always on target in other films, is really perfectly cast here, and he makes it work.