In the summer, especially after a nice Fourth of July holiday, you might be feeling a tad bit patriotic, and in that case, maybe you shouldn’t fire up 1968’s American-dream-doubting film The Swimmer.
This movie doesn’t just look at the traditional, upper-middle-class way of life with a bit of a cocked eye, it lifts the rock from that experience to get a good surreal look at its seedy, despicable underbelly.
It’s a film that came at the perfect time, starring Burt Lancaster, a classic Hollywood movie favorite, while fusing it with New Hollywood sensibilities, spearheaded by the young husband and wife creative partnership in Frank and Eleanor Perry.
What starts as a film that feels much more akin to the positive and feel-good American movies of the ’50s slowly finds itself devolving into a cynical and tired late-’60s movie.
The Swimmer will tear down any satisfactory feeling that…
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