The Swimmer (1968)
The Swimmer Photos
Movie Info
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Cast
as Ned Merrill
as Shirley Abbott
as Betty Graham
as Joan
as Julie Hooper
as Donald Westerhazy
as Peggy Forsburgh
as Mrs. Halloran
as Howie Hunsacker
as Ticket Seller
as Sylvia Finney
as Howard Graham
as Chauffeur
as Mr. Halloran
as Jack Finney
as Kevin Gilmartin
as Stu Forsburgh
as Lillian Hunsacker
as Cynthia
as Ticket Seller
as Vernon
as Mrs. Hammar
as Henry Biswanger
as Grace Biswanger
as Helen Westerhazy
as Muffie
as Matron at the Biswangers' Pool
as Guest at the Bunkers' Pool
as Enid Bunker
as Bunkers' Party Guest
Critic Reviews for The Swimmer
All Critics (21) | Top Critics (4) | Fresh (21) | Rotten (0) | DVD (2)
A resounding commercial flop, this has since been recognized as a signature 60s film, prescient in its view of American self-deception.
A largely loony but oddly compulsive allegory.
As do few movies, The Swimmer stays in the memory like an echo that never quite disappears.
Burt Lancaster is superb in his finest performance.
A woefully forgotten gem from the 1960s ... a penetrating piece of introspection that was clearly ahead of its time.
As effectively as almost any movie ever made about American suburbia, The Swimmer gets the contentment that comes with material success[...] And it gets how the fantasy is hard to sustain.
Audience Reviews for The Swimmer
A buff Burt Lancaster is nearly naked the whole film as a upscale businessman swimming through the pools of his neighbors in a circuitous route home one evening. I wouldn't watch this for years as I took it merely as a Lancaster vanity project, but now I guess I'm old enough to see that that actually plays an important part in the story, his vanity, undercutting what is seen versus what is real. There's a Twilight Zone twist telegraphed throughout, but nonetheless its a cool piece about the difference between who we think we are and who we are in fact.
Super Reviewer
Observing that all his neighbors have swimming pools, an indefatigably cheerful man out for a morning jog decides to "swim" his way home; at each stop he talks to a new neighbor, slowly painting a picture of his life. Based on a John Cheever short story, this odd concept works surprisingly well as both a suburban satire and (thanks to an excellent performance by Burt Lancaster) a touching character study of a man who doesn't realize the American dream has passed him by.
Super Reviewer
A magnetic parable that pulverizes the american dream. Burt Lancaster plays a character engulfed by existential grief, trying to reach his own paradise lost. He decides that his burden will end when he swims his way home through every of his neighbors' pools, finding fragments and glimpses of his obscure past. Though a bit dated, it certainly has a huge space of inner meditation and also gives a hard and well-aimed blow to american society the way 'American Beauty' did some decades later. It also anticipated the arrival of 70s cinema and its complex and disenchanting themes. Lancaster's performance stands out, as well as the final scene.
Super Reviewer
The Swimmer Quotes
| Ned: | Ned (toasting to Julie): Here's to the sugar on the strawberries. |
| Ned: | Here's to the sugar on the strawberries. |