Rating: 
Summary: A MASTERPIECE, Plain and Simple
Review: Or not so plain and hardly simple.My admiration for the shorter fiction of John Cheever knows no bounds, but this movie goes an already great short story one better. Great movies, of course, are made of very different stuff than great fiction. How, for example, to turn "Citizen Kane" into a great novel or "Ulysses" into a great film? Yet the reason this film works is "time"... The story itself is well known: At the home of some friends one "midsummer Sunday," a successful, middle-aged advertising executive named Neddy Merrill decides, peculiarly perhaps (though with much symbolism, Freudian and otherwise), to swim the length of suburbia, from one friend's pool to another, until he reaches home, where his wife and daughters (he believes) are waiting for him. At each pool, however, his friends appear a little less friendly (and, by the end, downright hostile), and we begin to see that time is passing a little too quickly, that midsummer is turning into late fall, that there is a chill in the air and storm clouds in the sky, and that, by the time Ned reaches the end of his journey, his life is in ruin, and that his entire existence has been "drained" in the course of a single afternoon. Funny how realizations of a wasted lifetime creep up on us that way. So here, perhaps, is the rub. In Cheever's story, a whole lifetime passes in one day, which passes in eight pages. In Frank Perry's movie, a whole lifetime passes in one day, which passes in about an hour and 40 minutes. The fifteen minutes or so required to read the original is too short, the time goes by too swiftly. This is a story that longs to be fleshed out (okay, pun intended), so that the shifting of Ned's fortunes and his realization of just how much he's lost seem more gradual, more subtle. Each encounter at each pool is like a variation on a theme. As the people from the first pool come walking over to the second while Ned swims away, we get a superb sense of temporal dislocation (the original theme is still perceptible in the background, but already the changes are being wrought): It is still the same morning in the friends' world, but years have passed in Ned's life, and this is emphasized by his encounter at the third pool, where he finds himself unwelcome at the house of an old friend who has since died. Ned not only fails to realize this at first, he doesn't even remember his friend having been sick. Although the camaraderie is recovered at the next pool, the dark clouds have made their presence felt. The encounter with his daughters' old baby-sitter, Julie (a naively beautiful Janet Landgard [and what an ironic name in this context!]), is a deviation from the original story, but works superbly as it serves at least two purposes: to bring home the unstoppable passage of time (as when Ned asks Julie if she can baby-sit his daughters that weekend even though, in "real" time, they've grown up already), and, when she flees his overweening embrace, to further illustrate just how much has escaped him, both figuratively and literally. The most haunting scene, however, occurs when Ned reaches an empty swimming pool guarded over by a young, towheaded boy playing the flute, a vision that conjures up images of lost innocence and invokes an extraordinary emotional yearning (and as much emptiness as the cracked concrete below him can provide) that the original story could not quite match. And who could fail to be moved by that final image of an irrevocably broken man, crouched in the fetal position and weeping in front of a house long-ago abandoned and left to molder, or the scene just before it, where Ned has to swim through the final dirty, crowded, but too-heavily chlorinated public pool (my, how the mighty have fallen!)? "Stings, doesn't it?" Jan Minor asks, and the line stings as well. Burt Lancaster, by any stretch one of stardom's most exceptional actors, here gives the performance of his career. The gleam in the eye, that unrelentingly toothy grin, that look of sheer obsession. At first so full of the vigor of youth, but by the end a (self-)defeated, frightened man, straining against himself to understand what happened, when and where literally everything went wrong. Who but Burt Lancaster could have pulled off such a miracle? Kudos, too, to Janice Rule for her portrayal of Shirley Abbott, a one-time lover: a character in a situation that could so easily have seemed cliche here achieves the status of classical tragedy. And note the cameo appearance by John Cheever himself, looking somehow peculiarly diminutive but ever dapper; a standout in the type of crowd he so brilliantly portrayed. And was there ever a more poignant score than that which Marvin Hamlish provided? "The Swimmer," the short story, is a great work of fiction, but "The Swimmer," the movie, is a great work of art. "One man's shattering Sunday odyssey through suburbia," as TV Guide once so unforgettably put it. Cheever couldn't have said it better himself.
Rating:
Summary: Swiiiiiiccccee!
Review: Saw on TV....night. 1st time seein.... the joint.... What up with dat dude Lancaster? . <*}}}{{{>< Movie is hot . Watch it. Take your own adventure. Maybe you'll fin something out about yo'self.
yes.
Rating: 
Summary: Like the "Twilight Zone"?
Review: Sure, it's like a "Twilight Zone" episode. In fact, I wish it were more like one, because then it would not be the 90 minute mess that it is. When I saw this movie, it seemed like about half of it was dedicated to Burt Lancaster running around as Marvin Hamlisch's atrocious score blasts away. I'm not against the idea of putting "The Swimmer" to film, but this was not the way to do it. In addition to the boredom this movie induced, I suspect it would have made me extremely confused had I not been familiar with the original tale. The Cheever story involves a man's life collapsing around him -- he loses his youth, his social status, and his money as he swims from pool to pool over the course of an afternoon. At the same time, it gets colder and the season changes from summer to autumn. None of this was apparent in this movie, though. I could easily imagine a viewer taking the whole thing literally -- certainly not what Cheever intended. Instead of being an allegory, it just seemed that Burt Lancaster had lost his sanity in addition to everyone else -- living as if the previous three, five, or however many years of his life had not occured. Burt Lancaster's frequent blank stares only made the main character seem crazier. If you want to laugh at a film that makes very little sense and is filled with really dated music, then feel free to watch this. Otherwise, just stick to the reading the short story. You'll have more than an hour to spare!
Rating:
Summary: Like the "Twilight Zone"?
Review: Sure, it's like a "Twilight Zone" episode. In fact, I wish it were more like one, because then it would not be the 90 minute mess that it is. When I saw this movie, it seemed like about half of it was dedicated to Burt Lancaster running around as Marvin Hamlisch's atrocious score blasts away. I'm not against the idea of putting "The Swimmer" to film, but this was not the way to do it. In addition to the boredom this movie induced, I suspect it would have made me extremely confused had I not been familiar with the original tale. The Cheever story involves a man's life collapsing around him -- he loses his youth, his social status, and his money as he swims from pool to pool over the course of an afternoon. At the same time, it gets colder and the season changes from summer to autumn. None of this was apparent in this movie, though. I could easily imagine a viewer taking the whole thing literally -- certainly not what Cheever intended. Instead of being an allegory, it just seemed that Burt Lancaster had lost his sanity in addition to everyone else -- living as if the previous three, five, or however many years of his life had not occured. Burt Lancaster's frequent blank stares only made the main character seem crazier. If you want to laugh at a film that makes very little sense and is filled with really dated music, then feel free to watch this. Otherwise, just stick to the reading the short story. You'll have more than an hour to spare!
Rating:
Summary: Top Notch DVD Release
Review: The Swimmer is a excellent quality DVD. Remastered in High Definition, Anamorohic Widescreen and Dolby Digital Sound. This is a real treat for fans of Burt Lancaster who have waited for this DVD release. This is the standard by which all DVD's should be measured.
Rating:
Summary: THOUGHT PROVOKING MUST SEE FILM
Review: The Swimmer is one my all time favorite films. The DVD transfer is absolutely incredible. The music is one of the best soundtracks I have ever heard, haunting, sad, exciting. The film works as a sort of jigsaw puzzle. When Burt Lancaster appears seemingly from nowhere clad only in swimming trunks which he wears for the entire film, we know nothing about him except through the comments and reactions of the various people he meets throughout his journey. The supporting cast is excellent and the photography stunning. As the plot slowly unravels we learn more and more about his character. To reveal anymore would spoil the film. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Odd editing, wooden actors
Review: The Swimmer is the story of a mid-life suburban crises in the form of Ned Merril (Burt Lancaster), possibly a recently-released patient from a Fairfield County, Connecticut Mental Ward after suffering a nervous breakdown. (ZZzzz) It should be stated that Helen Perry's screen film adaption was not at all similar to Cheever's original short story. In fact on Dick Cavett's tv show years ago, Cheever basically ignored any reference to the movie which indicated he was terribly disappointed. And anyone who thinks this is a classic, unusual film should consider that The Swimmer is a fair piece of piece of work, at best. What caught people's attention is that The Swimmer was different when compared with then-contemporary films, but that does not neccessarily make it a good film. What held the film together was Burt Lancaster's acting. Other than that, it was fair. The material could have been beter handled by a qualified French or Italian director who understands a this particular type of human-drama. The European film makers are trained (and study) films which are "deep". Frank Perry, despite his best efforts, does not qualify. (Respectively rest his soul--he died a few years ago) The only "promising scene" in The Swimmer was when Mr. Lancaster jumped the high hurdles. It was nicely filmed-(interestingly not my Mr. Perry, as I understand). To get another look at this slow motion scene, turn the sound off. It is an interesting bit of the film when viewed this way. But the final scene of Mr. Lancaster beating on the front door of the house is silly and quite hackney, Maybe a talented European film maker will consider re-shooting The Swimmer. Maybe have Ned Merril crashing a swim party at his friends suburban home and having him face his past rather than jumping from pool to pool and racing across the Merrit Parkway. PS Joan Rivers should make another cameo appearance
Rating:
Summary: Frank Perry's masterpiece
Review: This film is unique in all the american filmography. You may exhibit several examples about the question of the loneliness , like Sunset boulevard, Midnight cowboy, the naked kiss or even Butterfield 8. These films are worthy. But no film before and even thirty six years (with the exceptions of Paris Texas and American beauty) had approached the question in just so brutally dramatic, showing the naked soul of a mature man in a suden decadence.
Perry had the Midas touch when the story goes through all the swimming pool of Kentucky.
An intimate portrayal,a collage that describes like a few, the roughness, the cruelty the indifference of the human condition around a man who lost his center, his eaning for living, and surviving just by feeding his memories.
His ancient friends, his old love affairs , show us with no mercy the unboreble loneliness of this man who was once and now he's just a post card human, a colection piece , a lost specimen
from an old tale.
Lancaster gives us an unforgettable performing. I{m absolutely sure that the character of Lancaster in Atlantic city, was so easy to Burt, due he applied the emotive memory, apart his notable skills.
The swimmer is a cult movie. It's a acid view about a society who doesn't accept the failure, which runs from a lonely man who doesn't have to say excepts his memories.
Do you remember the sequence when he tries to get into the swimming pool in which he must to clean his feet before to get in? . The metaphor is so absorbing and fascinating that you can not forget easily. And the ending is very close to a horror film.
Please, don't forget this ending and try to tie with the end of 21 grams.
Momma dearest was made several years after. But in my particular opinion. Frank Perry will be remembered by this unvaluable gem of the best artistic expression american cinema.
Rating: 
Summary: Underated film that perfectly illustrates PTSD.
Review: This film, written and directed by the Perry's (a husband and wife team who also are responsible for several other films with mental health themes) stars Burt Lancaster who does, in my opinion, a beautiful job. It is based on a short story by Cheevers, which it follows faithfully (with an added scene where the protagonist meets the young girl and obviously is recreating his youth). The Director's were changed during the filming, I believe, and I am not sure who did or redid several scenes. This is a film which I have used in my teaching of psychiatric residents to illustrate the diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Rating:
Summary: Lancaster reveals despair found in modern suburbia
Review: This is a beautiful, underrated film, as relevant today as it was in 1968. Burt Lancaster's swimming journey though the emptiness that defines suburban life stings the viewer. Lancaster's performance as the man who cannot connect with anyone, is perfection. The vapid emptiness of his friends and neighbors stands in sharp constrast to his pain. A sensitive, beautiful and emotionally draining score by Marvin Hamlisch adds to the film's luster.
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