Reviews

Man on Wire tells the story of how Frenchman Phillippe Petit walked between the South and North Towers of the World Trade Center one August day in 1974. He wowed the world for 45 minutes as he danced on wire cable tied between the two buildings. This was not a spur-of- the-moment prank for a small and puckish man who spent many years planning this audacious display of joyful rebelliousness with a little help from his friends and a few strangers.

Four-fifths of the documentary, which runs approximately one hour and thirty-five minutes, is spent giving the audience a thumbnail profile of this unicyclist-juggler-wire walker extraordinaire and unraveling the blueprint for his quixotic adventure. The 2008 film is a mix of current talking-head interviews, archival photographs and film footage, home movies, and re-enactments of events before and after the historic walk.

After spending the bulk of the movie focusing on the planning, the last twenty-five minutes goes at a fast clip, retelling the minutes before the actual walk, showing the walk itself, and winding up with a short aftermath. Too much footage is spent on prologue and not enough on epilogue. Mr. Petit's story is certainly worthy of a documentary, but one leaves the screen wanting to know more of what has happened to Mr. Petit and his accomplices 34 years after the fact. He still walks wire and talks about the need to break rules, but what has that philosophy reaped him after all these years? During the last part of the film, Mr. Petit and his co-conspirators relate how their stunt almost literally fell through their hands as they were setting up the wiring. "At some point, I gave probably too much cable," Petit says. His helpers chime in and say "We could not hold it…. We almost lost the wire." One could say Man on Wire sags up front, is supple in the middle, and too tight at the end.

Bette Davis plays Alicia Hull, a small-town old-maid librarian. She is the focal point of "Storm Center," a movie ostensibly about censorship. Ms. Hull has managed and cared for the library and its patrons over the years to make it a valuable fixture in the community. So much so, the city council grants her wish to add a children's wing to the building. There is one hitch, though. Lately, a book entitled "Communist Dream" has caused come citizens to complain about its inclusion on the library's shelves. The councilmen want her to remove the book for fear it will put the wrong ideas into the minds of the town's youngsters, not to mention possibly cost them their seats next election.

Davis speaks softly and eloquently about why it is wrong to remove the book, invoking "Mein Kampf" as an example of the ability of readers to discern propaganda. After all, paraphrasing her, "America won the War." World War II that is.

Despite the polite debate that takes place between the council and Ms. Hull, the council does not change its mind. She, however, acquiesces and reluctantly decides to remove the book, pleased the library will have a special addition for the children.

Ms. Hull swiftly has second thoughts, though. She refuses to get rid of the book after all. Unfortunately, the council also acts fast and summarily fires her from her post. And the townspeople and their children turn ugly on her and themselves as a series of events unravel the close-knit town.

"Storm Center" was released just a few years after McCarthyism tore through Hollywood leaving a trail of on-screen and off-screen talent unemployed for years to come and a heavy trace of suspicion about political allegiances hanging in the sunlit aura of Tinseltown.

Shot in the standard black and white for its time, the movie is a stark allegory about the importance of intellectual freedom that has no subtlety yet drives its point home. The town could be Anytown, USA. The people look like any Jane or John Doe you might find on any main street in Middle America in the 1950s. Even Davis' dowdy character is a type played without nuance. But with a legitimate script that sometimes turns into a high-school civics lecture and supporting players who occasionally bring a human touch, the movie should sway present-day viewers that banning books is probably not a good a thing, whether it sacrifices an individual, corrupts another, or results in expensive vandalism.

Looking as if he had just finished his rendezvous with Deborah Kerr on the beach in "From Here To Eternity," Burt Lancaster costumed in only swim trunks that conform to his fit body plays Neddy Merrill in "The Swimmer." It is based on John Cheever's short story of the same name. The movie is set in the 1960s in a well-to-do northeast American white suburb populated with successful middle-aged business executives complete with fashionable and well-coiffed housewives and matching children and nice houses with manicured lawns and sparkly swimming pools. The cinematography expertly conveys the time and place.

The movie begins with Lancaster immersing himself in a neighboring family's pool sitting atop a verdant hill. The wife and husband greet him cheerily and talk about the hard-drinking party they held last night and apparently every weekend. Lo and behold a buddy from Neddy's school days pops by, but he's in no mood to join Neddy for another swim in the neighbors' pool and neither are the neighbors. They prefer Neddy stay beside the pool and knock down a few drinks with the sound of ice tinkling in their lowballs and laughter and flirting filling the air.

Neddy is a fish out of water. He politely shakes his head and looks out over the crest and sees that about every house on the way to his home has a pool. He announces that the string of cement ponds form the River Lucinda, in honor of his wife, and declares he will swim in every pool until he arrives home. The neighbors and his school buddy chuckle among themselves. But Neddy is serious and leaves smilingly, intent on swimming every section of River Lucinda.

This is not an inspirational movie about a man trying to complete a self-imposed challenge and doing a victory lap at the end. It is about a suburban man in a country-club atmosphere who comes to realize with every stroke he takes in his neighbors' pools his life is not what he thinks it is, and death may just be around the corner. It is more than middle age crazy. This is a film about a man's thoughts and previous actions played out in the back yards of Neddy's peers who are not stuck in the past but are complacently comfortable in the present.

There are happy, liberating, and gentle moments during and between Neddy's swims to be sure. He meets a young woman who was a childhood friend of his daughters and a small boy selling lemonade in need of a friend. But slowly the people in Neddy's enclave are not so kind to him and detest his taking dips in their pools or crashing their garden parties. Water can be cathartic, but not in Neddy's case. Mud and other impurities accompany him on his trip down memory lane, slowly awakening him from his amnesia as he visits a spurned lover and learns of debts way past due.

"The Swimmer" will be enjoyed by those moviegoers who like discovering the interior thoughts and experiencing the exterior reactions of an aging suburban stud put out in the rain with nowhere to go.