Summer Arthouse: "The Swimmer"

Everybody has their favorite summer flick.  Those of a nautical bent usually prefer "Jaws" or "The Shallows,"  while hydrophobic landlubbers usually gravitate towards drier fare, such as "Summer Rental" or "Fiddler on the Roof."  For me, a movie can't be properly considered "summer" without referencing the quintessential suburban experience of dipping into a swimming pool to escape a hot summer day.  With that proviso in mind, one of my favorite summer movies has to be Frank and Eleanor Perry's The Swimmer. 

Made in 1966, this Sam Spiegel production (under the "Horizon Pictures" label) was born out a short story by famed satirist, John Cheever.  It begins enigmatically: a man who is only wearing a navy blue bathing suit is seen running through a patch of Connecticut woods.  Emerging from the thickets into the toney backyard of one of his well-off neighbors, this skimpily-dressed man promptly jumps into their pool for an uninvited swim.  We soon learn that the man's name is Ned Merrill.  Played by the iconic Burt Lancaster, Merrill has himself a short swim that ends with a promptly offered martini (in a tumbler, no less!) by nonplussed neighbor Helen Westerhazy (what problem can't a martini solve?).  Soon we begin to pick up a few details about Merrill:  he is affable, if not outright charismatic, and is a successful businessman of some sort, as evidenced by his affluent neighborhood and friends.  Well, was a businessman might be more apropos as the growing gaggle of friendly neighbors - they are all heading to a party together - inquire about not having seen him in the neighborhood for some time.  Merrill adroitly deflects the probing inquiries with assurances that all is well with him and his family, and to prove it he declares that "this is the day Ned Merrill swims across the county!" When asked what he means, Merrill points out that there is a "river of swimming pools" that runs from the Westerhazys all the way to his house, and he resolves to swim in each one as he makes his way home to his cherished family.  Dubbing this path the "Lucinda River," named after his loving wife, Merrill sets off at a run on his chlorinated odyssey, leaving only the bemused smiles of his neighbors in his wake.  

While you would be forgiven for initially thinking that The Swimmer is a mere character study as we watch Merrill effortlessly charm all he meets - he adroitly navigates the common summer pool party topics of the weather, the water, and methods of pool filtration - The Swimmer soon reveals itself to be something more, a type of suburban Heart of Darkness that probes the horrors of trying to keep up with the Joneses.  Before long, Merrill's "river" expedition begins to take a psychologically stormy path, one that reveals that all is not right in Merrill's seemingly ever sunny world, something that is seen in the earliest moments of his pool pilgrimage as he garners more than a few odd glances from friends whenever he discusses his personal life, especially his wife and kids who, we are told, are eagerly awaiting his arrival back home.  It is here that director Perry successfully hooks the audience with the clear suggestion that there is a mystery afoot, one built around Merrill's shadowy past.

As with Joseph Conrad's magnum opus, Merrill's voyage becomes increasingly nightmarish as friendly neighbors slowly give way to hostile natives...er, neighbors, many of whom nurse a grudge against the man for reasons that are only implied.  Even the pools themselves begin to turn on Merrill as they become less inviting and increasingly chill the closer Merrill gets to home.  Merrill is perplexed by this, and at one point complains that "there is something wrong with the sun; there is no heat in it."  This is yet another clue to the Merrill puzzle, one that suggests his grasp of time is not too firm.  Not only do neighbors often correct his belief that events he refers to as being in the recent past were actually many years ago, but even Merrill's constant praise of the "fine midsummer day" is occasionally contradicted by glimpses of autumn, such as a leafless ash tree in a neighbors backyard, one that profoundly disturbs Merrill when he lays eyes upon it.

So progresses Ned Merrill's increasingly unbalanced psycho-aquatic adventure.  As I watched the movie unfold, I was reminded of Raymond Chandler's observation that nothing is so empty as an empty swimming pool.  While I have found that to be true, I think The Swimmer offers its own equally true observation:  there is nothing so empty as an empty man.  For that is what Ned Merrill is, a man who has been denuded of all, even his grip on reality. Having lost everything he once valued - a suburban home, a family, and a successful career - he clings to his only life preserver: his fading memories of the golden days of summers past.

The Swimmer has something of a negative reputation because the movie was not well received when it was released, partly due to audiences expecting more of a mainstream Burt Lancaster flick than the obscure arthouse psychological drama they received.  However, in recent years, The Swimmer has become a cult classic amongst arthouse aficionados, and I have to agree.  I went in not anticipating a particularly enjoyable experience because of the criticisms I have heard over the years, but I fell in love with this twisty psychological drama and, in particular, Lancaster's superlative performance as a man who seems to view reality only through the refracted shimmering of pool water.

If I have a complaint about The Swimmer, it would be this:  director Frank Perry's workmanlike presentation needed a more artistic approach.  When gazing inside the mind of a troubled individual, I believe a fun-house mirror style is called for rather than linear storytelling.  It is telling that when Perry was removed as director due to creative differences with producer Sam Spiegel, and young director Sydney Pollack was brought in, the scenes Pollack filmed are often noticeably more artistic and emotionally dramatic.  Pollack understood that a psychological drama needs a more artistic approach to convey the twisted worldview of a disturbed individual.  Burt Lancaster must have agreed with this because he would pay $10,000 out of pocket to give Pollack the funds he needed to do some limited reshoots.  

The movie also suffers from a particularly silly self-inflicted wound, a scene where Merrill romps around a riding ring like a horse.  This scene, one absent from the original short story and script, was inserted to explain why Lancaster walks with a limp later in the film - he suffered a foot injury while shooting the movie - but it is such an awkward explanation that it disrupts the narrative with farce.  Having said that, it is only fair to mention that Eleanor Perry was so incensed by this sub-par material being forced into her script that she almost resigned in protest.  

But those are minor quibbles as Mike Perry, utilizing his wife's script that smartly expanded on Cheever's short story (which you can read here), delivered a gem of an arthouse movie.  While it is true that The Swimmer has been overlooked in years past, the recent restoration by Grindhouse Releasing has now helped expose the movie to a wider audience, and finally earned it some long-overdue accolades and a growing cult of fans.  Roger Ebert once summarized The Swimmer as "a strange, stylized work, a brilliant and disturbing one." I could not agree more and highly recommend this Lancaster sleeper.  Come on in, the water's fine!