ChanBot i must have seen a different film!!

Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Matho The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

hnt_dnl I've always thought that the 1960s overall wasn't a great decade in film, although ironically the film that I think to be the best film of all time, 2001:A space Odyssey, came in the 60s and in the same year of this film, THE SWIMMER (1968), that I'm reviewing. "The Swimmer", a hidden gem of a masterpiece starring one of the most iconic star-actors in all of film history, the great Burt Lancaster, features arguably his greatest accomplishment as an actor. Probably no surprise that Lancaster didn't garner a Best Actor nod for this as it's an extremely surreal, odd, unsettling film experience that doesn't shout for awards.Lancaster brilliantly essays the complex role of Ned Merrill, an athletic, successful family man, who through the course of the film, taking place on a summer day in a sizable suburban Connecticut community, swims from pool to pool of different neighbors trying to make his way home to his wife and 2 daughters. The boastful, middle-aged Ned begins the film talking of his "perfect" life, great job, loving family, but as the film progresses, layers of both Ned's character and personal life get methodically revealed that shed away his confident demeanor piece by piece.Along his journey, Ned runs into his neighbors who, through stimulating and involving conversations, each helps to piece together the puzzle of Ned's life while revealing their own true natures. Ned slowly sees the hypocrisy and phoniness in the middle-class world he's been living in and that he has no real friends that he can count on when the chips are down. Ned becomes more disoriented and confused as he progressively gets treated with more vitriol and contempt from people in the community as the day wanes on. By the time Ned finds his way home, a devastating revelation lays in wait for both Ned and the viewer.What makes "The Swimmer" so challenging is that it can be interpreted as either 1) a literal happening of Ned swimming across the community and running into old "friends", OR 2) an allegory of the trajectory of the downfall of Ned's life, told in surrealistic fashion using the pool journey as the storyteller. A third interpretation is that it could simply be the thoughts of Ned in his dying moments, his life flashing before his eyes close for the last time. I love movies like this with both ambiguity AND depth of character! Burt Lancaster's pitch perfect performance, along with the beautiful photography and setting and surreal atmosphere, makes the film one of the most interesting pieces of cinema in both the 1960s as well as in film history!

ppilf It seems to me there's a story not being told here that drove this movie. It was very well made, very sentimental, the music was especially beautiful, and I liked Burt Lancaster's performance much better than usual. But I did get a tiny bit bored because it never revealed the story. Was he successful at one time in some business, and then failed? Did he marry for money, and loved someone else? Was he feeling sentimental regret because he loved his wife and family but failed as a husband and father, and if so, why? Or was he feeling regret for something entirely different? I just couldn't figure it out.This film is very unique in that it is the only film I've ever seen that I can say I really liked a lot, but can someone please tell me what the hell it was about?

Connie Cunningham Looking as if he had just finished his rendezvous with Deborah Kerr on the beach in "From Here To Eternity," Burt Lancaster costumed in only swim trunks that conform to his fit body plays Neddy Merrill in "The Swimmer." It is based on John Cheever's short story of the same name. The movie is set in the 1960s in a well-to-do northeast American white suburb populated with successful middle-aged business executives complete with fashionable and well-coiffed housewives and matching children and nice houses with manicured lawns and sparkly swimming pools. The cinematography expertly conveys the time and place. The movie begins with Lancaster immersing himself in a neighboring family's pool sitting atop a verdant hill. The wife and husband greet him cheerily and talk about the hard-drinking party they held last night and apparently every weekend. Lo and behold a buddy from Neddy's school days pops by, but he's in no mood to join Neddy for another swim in the neighbors' pool and neither are the neighbors. They prefer Neddy stay beside the pool and knock down a few drinks with the sound of ice tinkling in their lowballs and laughter and flirting filling the air.Neddy is a fish out of water. He politely shakes his head and looks out over the crest and sees that about every house on the way to his home has a pool. He announces that the string of cement ponds form the River Lucinda, in honor of his wife, and declares he will swim in every pool until he arrives home. The neighbors and his school buddy chuckle among themselves. But Neddy is serious and leaves smilingly, intent on swimming every section of River Lucinda.This is not an inspirational movie about a man trying to complete a self-imposed challenge and doing a victory lap at the end. It is about a suburban man in a country-club atmosphere who comes to realize with every stroke he takes in his neighbors' pools his life is not what he thinks it is, and death may just be around the corner. It is more than middle age crazy. This is a film about a man's thoughts and previous actions played out in the back yards of Neddy's peers who are not stuck in the past but are complacently comfortable in the present. There are happy, liberating, and gentle moments during and between Neddy's swims to be sure. He meets a young woman who was a childhood friend of his daughters and a small boy selling lemonade in need of a friend. But slowly the people in Neddy's enclave are not so kind to him and detest his taking dips in their pools or crashing their garden parties. Water can be cathartic, but not in Neddy's case. Mud and other impurities accompany him on his trip down memory lane, slowly awakening him from his amnesia as he visits a spurned lover and learns of debts way past due."The Swimmer" will be enjoyed by those moviegoers who like discovering the interior thoughts and experiencing the exterior reactions of an aging suburban stud put out in the rain with nowhere to go.

SnoopyStyle Neddy Merrill (Burt Lancaster) has been gone for some time. He takes a swim in a neighbor's pool. Friends start to gather and everybody is happy to see him. When somebody points out some of the great pools in the neighborhood, Neddy decides to swim the various pools until he reaches his home. He vows to swim home. Along the way, he invites his daughter's former babysitter Julie Ann Hooper (Janet Landgard), he meets friend who are polite, people who are angry at him and a former love.This is journey not only through the neighborhood but into his interior. All the small talk is covering for something tragic. It's obvious that he is trying to escape reality but all his friends talk in a circle. He is always looking towards the sky. There is something disturbing that nobody is willing to put a voice to. Burt Lancaster is brilliant and perfect. The visuals are mostly sunny. There is usually a happy but unsettled disposition. The tone and Lancaster make this a great movie.