NOBODY'S FOOL
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1995 Scott Renshaw
Starring: Paul Newman, Jessica Tandy, Bruce Willis, Dylan Walsh, Melanie Griffith, Pruitt Taylor Vince. Screenplay/Director: Robert Benton.
Maybe it's envy, maybe it's years of Hollywood trying to sell every pretty boy or gorgeous girl as the Next Big Thing, and maybe it's some combination of the two. For whatever reason, both moviegoers and critics alike seem to have incredible difficulty acknowledging that attractiveness and talent could go hand in hand. Paul Newman was nearly sixt before it became widely acknowledged that there was more to this guy than his famous blue eyes; he could actually act. When he won as Best Actor in 1987 for THE COLOR OF MONEY, it was widely considered a lifetime achievement award, but apparently Newman had at least one more trick up his sleeve: NOBODY'S FOOL, a small, quiet drama driven by Newman's delightfully weathered lead performance.
Newman plays Donald "Sully" Sullivan, an often-unemployed construction worker living in the sleepy upstate New York town of North Bath. After suffering an on-the-job knee injury, Sully's days are largely spent playing poker, bantering with his landlady (Jessica Tandy) and trying to squeeze some compensation out of the construcion company's owner Carl Roebuck (Bruce Willis). But during this holiday season, there are other opportunities. In town for Thanksgiving is Sully's son Peter (Dylan Walsh), a son he's had an uneasy relationship with since Sully left the family when Peter was a baby. Peter is having marital troubles of his own, and when Peter stays in town with his own son, Sully has the chance to look back on his life and begin to take on some degree of responsibility for it.
Writer/director Robert Benton has a gift for making low-key, relationship-based films (KRAMER VS. KRAMER, PLACES IN THE HEART), and NOBODY'S FOOL is a worthy heir to that tradition. Benton uses his snow-covered locations beautifully, practically turning North Bath into one of the characters in the story. In many ways, NOBODY'S FOOL is as much about North Bath as it is about Sully. This is a town where everyone really does know everyone else, where local disputes are settled by a judge (Philip Bosco) who addresses people by their first names, and where a guy like Sully, to all outward appearances a loser in life, is still treated with a basic respect for his independent mind. When a local banker attempts to bring a theme park to North Bath, it is a demonstration of a fundamental misunderstanding of what the town is about: a sense of family.
That connectedness makes the relationships between characters in NOBODY'S FOOL a rare joy. There is not a mean-spirited moment to be found, because even the characters who don't get along treat each other as fellow humans. Sully's feud with Carl is one of the few external conflicts in the film, manifested primarily in a game of stealing a snow-blower back and forth, but even that exchange is essentially good-humored. It's one of the things that makes Sully so appealing as a character: as ornery as he can be, he always treats people decently. His paternal relationship with sadsack co-worker Rub (Pruitt Taylor Vince) is a pleasure to watch unfold, and a simple moment when Sully helps a senile older woman back to her home is handled without an ounce of condescension. It's ironic--and perhaps part of the point of NOBODY'S FOOL--that the one relationship which seems forced is that between Sully and Peter. Still, there's something strangely satisfying about a meeting between an estranged father and son which doesn't include a shouting match or tears.
However, the main reason Sully is so appealing is Paul Newman. He has reached a point in his career where he doesn't really play characters any more; instead, he slips into them like the flannel shirts Sully favors. That is in no way meant to belittle what Newman does as an actor. The fact is that he makes it all look effortless, as though he's really been Sully all his life, and someone just happened to turn the camera on at this moment. The background for the character (an abusive father, his own abandonment of his family) seems almost tacked on so the movie seems to be about something more, but Newman doesn't really need it. What we are watching is the story of a man who is somehow coming to terms with all the choices he has made in his life, and choosing to move forward rather than stand in place. It's Newman's gift that he can do all that with a well-placed sigh and a twinkle in those eyes.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 twinkles: 8.
-- Scott Renshaw Stanford University Office of the General Counsel
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