The Accidental Tourist

The Motion Picture Academy's Governors' Awards are coming up, so I'll be looking at the key films of those receiving them. First up is Geena Davis, who is bestowed the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.

Davis won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for The Accidental Tourist, a 1988 film directed by Lawrence Kasdan. I hadn't seen it since it first came out (I also read the source novel by Anne Tyler), and I had forgotten about how sad it is. Movies and books about dead children are legion, almost too easy to milk emotion, but this film does manage to not drown in sentiment, but man is it steeped in melancholy.

William Hurt stars as Macon Leary, a writer of travel guidebooks for people who don't like to travel. This mirrors the way he lives his life--aloof, without opening up or making deep connections (he recommends bringing a book onto an airplane to avoid conversations with neighbors). As the film begins, his wife (Kathleen Turner) wants a divorce, about a year after their son was shot to death in a robbery.

Now even more in a cloud, Hurt ends up back with his family of eccentric (and unmarried) siblings. His sister, Amy Wright, takes care of them like a mother hen, alphabetizing the items in the pantry. When taking his dog into be boarded, Hurt meets Davis, a dog trainer, who for some reason sets her sights on him, aggressively pursuing him until he finally breaks down. But then Turner comes back into his life.

Examining this film, the main problem is why two women would compete for Hurt. Leary is a character that is so befogged and distracted that it's hard to imagine how he and Turner ended up together in the first place. His bachelor brothers, (Ed Begley and David Ogden Stiers) are more realistically depicted than Hurt.

But the film is oddly affecting, mainly due to Davis. Her character is an extrovert, constantly changing conversation topics. But when she gets her hooks into Hurt she's determined to hang on to him, even if he doesn't seem to be in the same room all the time. When he says he will pay for her son's private school, she angrily tells him not to make promises he can't keep.

I won't spoil the ending (which woman will win Hurt?) but it's appropriate, and it ends with Hurt giving us a smile, which I believe is the first one in the film from him. If you're in the wrong frame of mind, or have experienced the death of a child, this could be too damn depressing.