Friday | August 30, 2013 7:00 pm

The Swimmer

Screening on Film

Directed by Frank Perry.
With Burt Lancaster, Janet Landgard, Janice Rule.
US, 1968, 35mm, color, 94 min.
Print source: Sony Pictures

A cult favorite, The Swimmer is a striking and dreamy adaptation of an enigmatic John Cheever short story about a seemingly successful New England executive forced to look back over his life in the course of a long afternoon spent tracing a path through his neighborhood swimming pools. Cheever's keen eye for the alcoholic malaise and mid-life crises simmering just beneath the shimmering veneer of New England suburbia finds its match in the film's careful attention to the polite rituals and cruel insinuations that go hand-in-hand as Lancaster encounters a series of past loves and forgotten memories. After frequently clashing with director Frank Perry, Lancaster replaced him towards the end of the production with a young Sydney Pollack.