Nobody's Fool (1994)

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Sully has co-existed with his former eighth-grade teacher for apparent decades (the great Jessica Tandy, in her next-to-last performance), living in an upstairs apartment and doing - when he remembers to - odd jobs for her as well as keeping an eye on her. He is constantly at odds with her stuffy bank-manager son (Josef Sommer) who wants Sully out of his mother's house; Sully is also at mild odds with several other people in town, including his ex-wife, and an uncredited performance by Bruce Willis as Carl Roebuck, a local construction-site manager who is frittering away the family fortune on trips with floozy office assistants.

The cast is stuffed with excellent actors and performances, at a time when some of them were just becoming known; Philip Seymour Hoffman plays a local policeman who makes Barney Fife look competent, and Melanie Griffith, as Carl Roebuck's exasperated wife, plays an excellent foil to Sully, who banters with her as he steals her husband's snowblower with her tacit consent. I absolutely love this little classic, and I believe it deserves to be on the shelf alongside everyone's favourite holiday movies; since it spans both Thanksgiving and Christmas, it could fit either.

The film meanders amiably along through the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas, as Sully deals with various small crises in his life and amongst the citizens of the town.

The tolerance and humour shown throughout the film feels as welcome as an old and well-loved article of clothing, and the fine filming is enhanced by an underplayed and sweet score by Howard Shore. This is a gentle, small movie about small-town living and its citizens, particularly a blatantly unapologetic ne'er-do-well named Sully (Paul Newman) who has lived his life exactly as he wants to and manages, by optimism and the bonding in this town, to survive quite well in spite of himself.

There is a comfortableness about this movie that makes you want to just sit back and enjoy it; nothing momentous happens, just the normal give-and-take of a town this size, where everybody knows everybody and even the most hopeless members of the community are given plenty of slack (Sully is let out of jail to be a pallbearer at one point)and the clear affection amongst most of the community comes through plainly.

The entire cast shines and this arguably the best work you've seen from Melanie Griffith and Bruce Willis. A young Philip Seymour Hoffman is a treat and Jessica Tandy's final role makes this a must see. Paul Newman makes all the difference. I like Richard Russo's books. I believe his work in 1994 was better with "Nobody's Fool" and "The Hudsucker Proxy." Newman won only one Oscar, Best Actor for his role in "The Color of Money" in 1986. This is one of my favorite dramas. I'm fond of "Mohawk" and "Empire Falls." However, this movie manages to be as good as the book without being a direct translation.

I couldn't do everything at first, either. Peter: It's not gonna be easy being you, is it. Paul Newman was nominated and won multiple acting awards for this role and many would say that the role suited him, thinking that this is how acting works, but instead, Newman was given a rare opportunity in Hollywood: the chance to perform a character that was so well defined and so flawlessly written and directed that an Oscar nod was guaranteed at the first table read.(It is interested that Newman would later play a supporting role in Russo's next film, "Empire Falls" for HBO Films). An actor of Newman's quality combined with all of the elements attached to this film create a vehicle for Newman that allows him to stand out along with a cast whose awarded hardware would more than fill the back of a pick-up truck. thank you to the one time production company who managed to create magic for all history during the winter of 1993 whi8le filming and growing close in an experience that must have been beyond remarkable because the result, an outsiders look really, is a film that is only allowed a rating as high as five stars or superior excellence, when in fact there is no room to comment on how this motion picture will touch your heart, connect to your own life and change you for ever. He rents a room from an old woman who lives alone in a large house that used to be the Grand Dame of the town in years past. Benton and cinematographer John Bailey have captured the gray bleak winter of upstate New York and both this ambiance and the town itself (like the Street mentioned before) become a character entity all on it's own.

Outstanding performances by Bruce Willis, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Melanie Griffith, and Josef Sommers are just a few of the performances that create a world into which we become lost for a period of 108 minutes. The house and street, like the woman herself (played remarkably by Jessica Tandy in her final acting performance)have become worn out, sagging along the roof lines and a street sprinkled with large trees in various stages of dying; a metaphor that isn't lost on anyone. Sully: Don't expect much from yourself in the beginning.

In a forgotten upstate New York town, Sully (Newman) is approaching retirement in a life that was based on labor that has left him with a destroyed knee, destroyed marriage and an estranged relationship with his son. I decided that owning this film was the way to go because it gives more each time. As a portion of the script says:.

From that point, the finest performers out there were placed into the hands of master director and writer, Robert Benton to create this brilliant film. Both the original novel and the screenplay was writte4n by Pullitzer Prize winner "Richard Russo" (Empire Falls, Bridge of Sighs)so that well defined characters, a superb plot and a realistic setting began on paper. If you've seen the film only one or if you've not seen the film, it's time to rent or buy it.

Paul Newman is the best. This movie is so entertaining I watch it at least twice a year.