Review of Being There (1979) by Ryan D — 02 Jul 2011
It's a story of a mentally handicapped man named Chance, the Gardener to an estate of a late 'old man', and his name gets misheard as Chauncy Gardner. Through a long series of being in the right place, misunderstandings, and his unusual calm gentleman-like personality and fashion, he advances up the political ladder without ever realizing he's on one.
As movies with mentally handicapped characters go, this one was superb. The character isn't hammed up. His happy, calm, optomistic personality makes him quite enjoyable to follow. And though he has very few real dimensions, the audience is not left wanting because he has many dimensions falsely created by the other characters.
The movie also has opportunities to fall into cliches but does not. The only negative I saw in the movie was the last 30 seconds of the movie, they do something entirely unexpected which feels untrue to the movie, though it's not that negative because the meaning of it is so open ended, and the rest of the film is a complete story without it anyway.
This review of Being There (1979) was written by Ryan D on 02 Jul 2011.
Being There has generally received very positive reviews.
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