The Swimmer (1968)

Directed by Frank Perry. Starring Burt Lancaster, Janet Landgard, Janice Rule, Michael Kearney, Marge Champion, Tony Bickley, Kim Hunter, Charles Drake.

Fit, bronzed, middle-aged Lancaster rubs elbows with wealthy suburbanites on a sunny Connecticut summer day and decides to head home from a pool party by swimming a “river” of swimming pools all the way to his destination. A strange plot device, to be sure, offering up opportunities for the protagonist to have run-ins with various types along the way (mostly figures from his past, which is gradually revealed to be darker and more complex than one would expect), and the surreal journey is ripe with metaphors that alternate between the obvious and the obtuse. A few overwrought scenes hamper the experience, especially the finale with Marvin Hamlisch’s string arrangements laid on thick like chlorine and sun tan lotion, but Lancaster’s compelling performance makes up for it. Adapted from a John Cheever short story. Joan Rivers appears in her first film role.

73/100