rating:
(out of
4 stars)United States; 1979
Directed by Hal Ashby; produced by Andrew Braunsberg; screenplay by Jerzy Kosinski
Starring Peter Sellers, Shirley MacLaine, Melvyn Douglas, Jack Warden, Richard Dysart, Richard Basehart
Below you will find a temporary review for this film. The real (better, more complete) review will be online very soon.
Peter Sellers does such a tremendous job in 'Being There', a film based on
the book by Jerzy Kosinksi. He is Chance the gardener. He has never been
outside the house where he is the gardener, only in the garden. He lives
only with his television and knows only the things he sees on TV. In his
world you click with the remote control and the image you see will change.
His motto: "I like to watch." You can imagine what happens when he goes out
into the world and uses that line in some situations...
He has to go out in the world. The old man who might be his father (we never
know, he doesn't know) dies and he owned the house where Chance was living.
Since there is no record of Chance he has to leave the house. The simple
mind of Chance ends up in the house of Benjamin (Melvyn Douglas) and Eve
Rand (Shirley MacLaine). They are very rich and are even friends with the
president. Because Chance is so simple, he is also very direct. The things
he says are always about gardening, but people around him think he is just
using the garden as a metaphor. The things seems to be logical and he is
even quoted by the president.
A story like this is may be a little hard too take, but the way it is
presented you will believe. It even seems the only thing you can believe.
The performance by Sellers is absolutely great. He talks a little like HAL
in '2001: A Space Odyssey', although he is not intelligent at all he sounds
like a professor. Douglas and MacLaine are good too but Sellers definitely
makes this his movie. Very intelligent, very funny, a very fine satire with
a final sequence you can talk about for hours.