Review of Jack Goes Boating (2010) by Paul S — 13 Dec 2011

Directed and starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Jack Goes Boating tells an interesting tale of love found and lost - using the parallel tales of Jack (Hoffman), a rather simple minded guy who is courting a damaged woman (terrific portrayal by Amy Ryan), and the couple who play matchmakers, while their own marriage dissolves, due to infidelities real and perceived.

Jack is an interesting character study, the kind of quirky dude that Hoffman plays so very well. He appears to be a fish out of water, and yet there's a certain nobility in his steadfast desire to learn and better himself - if nothing more than because he perceives that Ryan is requiring it of him. For example, the title of the film - after meeting in mid-winter, Ryan says that she'd like to go boating some time. This refers to the romantic image of man and woman in a row boat, drifting on a tranquil lake on a warm summer's day. Jack tells her he'd like to take her, but when it gets warmer. Unfortunately he can't swim, so the concept of being in the middle of a lake in a small craft scares him. The solution: he enlists his buddy and fellow limo driver Clyde (another wonderful performance by John Ortiz), to teach him how to swim.

Clyde is a true friend, who revels in Jack's courting, even while revealing to Jack that long term relationships aren't all they're cracked up to be. His attempts to wipe the mutual deeds of the past away concerning both he and his wife Lucy (an uneven performance by Daphne Rubin-Vega) are almost heartbreaking - he has forgiven her, but she can't do the same for him.

Hoffman's directing debut of this stage adaptation is a mixed bag. He shows glimpses of imagery, but remains too tied down to the linear presentation of the story while lingering too long on silent shots meant to convey deep meaning. Conversely he plays too fast and loose with some of the scenes, like cutting into the bedroom where Jack and Ryan have just had their first, aborted attempt at sex. It is revealed that Ryan is psychologically damaged (which the film infers earlier, yet never delves into why) - and yet the entire scene plays as a quirky mess, having no prior setup to ground it.

This is the type of film adaptation where I was wondering just how it would be presented on stage. Sure, it's a small, indie type film, but the action seems so over drawn and drawn out that you wonder how it would present over two or three acts.