I get that Joanna is a sort of Candide, an innocent heroine whose adventures are probably meant to give the director an opportunity to comment on aspects of the culture. That she has (or should have) this larger function is the only thing that could justify the big song and dance at the end, which is supposed to show that Joanna's transit through the other characters' lives has turned them around, made them see beauty and sweetness and gentleness and other faux hippie-dippy nonsense that would have made Voltaire scream. Joanna might be interesting if she were a puzzle, but she is a blank, she can barely be said to have any behavior at all. She is a beautiful rag doll, and your only response when she is mistreated is to hope that getting taken for granted or slapped around (and her bleating sorrow that follows) won't mar her features. In a general way, of course, you hate to see a movie doing some of the things to a character that are done to Joanna unless there is some point to be made, and the best point that could be made in this kind of Candide story when, for instance, Joanna's boyfriend philosophizes that women want to be treated rough and then he does just that -- as I'm saying, the best point that could be made from this is that this is the way the world is, here are some of the terrible cracks exposed in the world Joanna lives in. But no, the movie goes along with the troglodyte attitude and Joanna responds the way her boyfriend intends she should. All this might still be fun in an archeological kind of way, i.e., look what passed for social philosophy in the Sixties, if there were any energy in the directing, the writing, the music or, barring all that, in more than one or two of the main performances. Joanna's a dead fish. Donald Sutherland is even worse, but for such a great actor to put in such a poor performance says a lot about the writing and directing (was there a dialect coach anywhere?), but especially the writing. Sutherland's part is easily the worst written of a badly written movie. How could it not be? He is meant to exemplify the psychedelic metaphysics of beauty and oneness that the movie makes pastel stabs at pushing, and he has to spout all this hooey about it and he is supposed to find its embodiment in that shapely potato, Joanna, and then he is supposed to die, which is the best thing he does. Do I need to summarize? When I and my co-workers start talking movies and nominating the worst movies ever made (we do spend more time on good movies than bad) Joanna is high on my list.
