Now I can imagine where Clint Eastwood looked for some inspiration to play Frankie Dunn in his "Million Dollar Baby". Donald Sullivan, or Sully, is the main character of Robert Benton's "Nobody's Fool". Paul Newman is certainly no fool, and he plays Sully as a grumpy old man, unimpressed by anything or anyone, short of words and emotion. However, Sully describes himself as someone who "grows on people", and apparently every time he feels he's done something right, he hits the closest thing to him
Twice.
It's a wonderful performance by Newnan, whose character believes in luck. Well, while Frankie Dunn probably didn't, there's something that connects them both besides their human qualities (being grumpy may not be something nice, but it's still a quality), and that's the fact of living a life knowing they haven't been the best of fathers.
A movie like "Nobody's Fool", written and directed by someone as experienced as Robert Benton, is always going to be a winner, but it's interesting to know why. It may not be the easiest thing to develop an almost two-hour film in a small town where essentially, as it occurs in most movies of the type, nothing happens. But this statement is confusing, because a lot of things take place in "Nobody's Fool", that if you look at them from a greater scale, they're still nothing.
Benton takes the time and dedication to show us the lifestyle in this town, Bath, and the characters that inhabit it, more precisely the ones who are involved in Sully's life. That's how we meet his friends: the stubborn Rub (that Pruitt Taylor Vince), Wirf Wirfley (Gene Saks)- Sully's one-legged lawyer-, the old lady he lives with-and loves him more than he imagines- Mrs. Beryl (Jessica Tandy's last performance); and his enemies: his boss Car Roebuck (a charming Bruce Willis), who owes him a lot of money and cheats on his wife Toby (a beautiful Melanie Griffith), with whom Sally gets along well; and Raymer (a young and Great Philip Seymour Hoffman), a rookie police officer who wants to put him in jail because he doesn't pay traffic tickets and who knows what else.
As Sully himself says, he's a well-known, loved man; so that's why we are surprised when he encounters his son Peter (Dylan Walsh) and they both behave like total strangers. As I mentioned, a lot of things occur in the film and various plot lines are unfold, but there is always one that has to highlight above the rest. In "Nobody's Fool", that plot line is the father-son relationship, which comes with a grandson.
Luckily, as it happened with Eastwood in "Million Dollar Baby" years later, Newman has the expertise to take enough distance and keep the movie from turning into an intense melodrama. The script throws in a couple of dramatic scenes where the wrong actor could have taken it too far. Newman also takes advantage of the few funny lines he's given and establishes a distended mood of performance that affects the film, in which you can laugh. The truth is that Benton wrote a predictable and cheesy screenplay (and Howard Shore composed a predictable and cheesy score, however pleasantly 'little town-ish'), but somehow a certain honesty prevails.
Maybe it has something to do with Benton wanting to respect Richard Russo's homonymous novel, but "Nobody's Fool" is a winner because due to that respect we don't miss a thing and we believe and appreciate the things we see. Sully really grows on us too, and the same happens with his friends and even his enemies, who fight and steal things from each other, but at the end of the day meet at the same table, in the same bar, to play a good game of poker.
It's a wonderful performance by Newnan, whose character believes in luck. Well, while Frankie Dunn probably didn't, there's something that connects them both besides their human qualities (being grumpy may not be something nice, but it's still a quality), and that's the fact of living a life knowing they haven't been the best of fathers.
A movie like "Nobody's Fool", written and directed by someone as experienced as Robert Benton, is always going to be a winner, but it's interesting to know why. It may not be the easiest thing to develop an almost two-hour film in a small town where essentially, as it occurs in most movies of the type, nothing happens. But this statement is confusing, because a lot of things take place in "Nobody's Fool", that if you look at them from a greater scale, they're still nothing.
Benton takes the time and dedication to show us the lifestyle in this town, Bath, and the characters that inhabit it, more precisely the ones who are involved in Sully's life. That's how we meet his friends: the stubborn Rub (that Pruitt Taylor Vince), Wirf Wirfley (Gene Saks)- Sully's one-legged lawyer-, the old lady he lives with-and loves him more than he imagines- Mrs. Beryl (Jessica Tandy's last performance); and his enemies: his boss Car Roebuck (a charming Bruce Willis), who owes him a lot of money and cheats on his wife Toby (a beautiful Melanie Griffith), with whom Sally gets along well; and Raymer (a young and Great Philip Seymour Hoffman), a rookie police officer who wants to put him in jail because he doesn't pay traffic tickets and who knows what else.
As Sully himself says, he's a well-known, loved man; so that's why we are surprised when he encounters his son Peter (Dylan Walsh) and they both behave like total strangers. As I mentioned, a lot of things occur in the film and various plot lines are unfold, but there is always one that has to highlight above the rest. In "Nobody's Fool", that plot line is the father-son relationship, which comes with a grandson.
Luckily, as it happened with Eastwood in "Million Dollar Baby" years later, Newman has the expertise to take enough distance and keep the movie from turning into an intense melodrama. The script throws in a couple of dramatic scenes where the wrong actor could have taken it too far. Newman also takes advantage of the few funny lines he's given and establishes a distended mood of performance that affects the film, in which you can laugh. The truth is that Benton wrote a predictable and cheesy screenplay (and Howard Shore composed a predictable and cheesy score, however pleasantly 'little town-ish'), but somehow a certain honesty prevails.
Maybe it has something to do with Benton wanting to respect Richard Russo's homonymous novel, but "Nobody's Fool" is a winner because due to that respect we don't miss a thing and we believe and appreciate the things we see. Sully really grows on us too, and the same happens with his friends and even his enemies, who fight and steal things from each other, but at the end of the day meet at the same table, in the same bar, to play a good game of poker.