Notoriously for unexpectedly overcoming formidable obstacle to win a BEST ACTOR Oscar grail for TV veteran Art Carney - who pips Al Pacino in THE GODFATHER PART II, Jack Nicholson in CHINATOWN, Dustin Hoffman in LENNY, the towering troika in retrospect, HARRY AND TONTO, Paul Mazursky's fourth feature film, is a lodestone steeped in life-affirming sageness and takes a dear look of something not so often grants a cinematic treatise, the displacement and loneliness of an elderly person (yes, he is a white, male, intellectual one, but baby steps…).
Harry Coombes (Carney), a retired widower, former school-teacher, loses his NYC's Upper West Side apartment due to the area's gentrification (ok, to be specific, a new parking lot), and moves into the poky dwelling of his eldest son Burt (Bruns) in the suburbs with his ginger pet cat Tonto, frictions soon arise (often, it is so stale to put the blame on the grievance-whinging daughter-in-law while the son remains exasperatingly filial), so why not visit his daughter Shirley (Burstyn, who receives a b-word treatment from her nephew, apropos of nothing, wtf?) for a change?, who lives in Chicago, altering from plane, bus, finally to a second-hand automobile, Harry's cross- country journey is protracted,and divagates after he takes the underage hitchhiker Ginger (Mayron) en route (not entirely proper in today's knowledge to see them sleep in the same motel room, but that should be perfectly normal in the 70s!), visiting his pixelated first love Jessie Stone (Fitzgerald, dancing beautifully with her searching eyes and lucid articulation that masks the sadness of aging and dementia) in an elderly home proves to be both melancholy and touching.
The Wind City is obviously not salubrious for Harry, ergo, he continues his ride westward, to reach LA which is the turf of his youngster son Eddie (Hagman), a real estate agent. After several brushes with the Star-Spangled capitalism paraphernalia ( casino, high-end prostitute, a succinct stretch in the prison cell for public urination), Harry arrives his destination safe and sound, but Eddie turns out to be another disappointment, however, the sunny climate is rather beneficent to his wellbeing, and as an independent old fellow's entitlement, Harry manages to settle down without much trouble, only there is no magic potion to prolong Tonto's longevity, 11 human years is approximately the cat year of 77, Harry must brave the farewell with misty eyes and more dose of melancholia , but worry not, a new, similar feline friend is not so far off,even some twilight romance is rosily beckoning.
Carney, who is much younger than a septuagenarian he portrays, exudes a hale, warm, earnest, witty affinity, spiked with crustiness only when Tonto is concerned or mistreated, perfectly presenting an everyman persona that can ring true in every audience member's empathy, however , under the senior-looking make-up, his gimlet eye betrays his real age, and that is not exactly a bad thing for a movie notably for its own tactful idealization.
For all it's wishfulness and patronage of a desolate old man's subliminal fantasies (outliving his friends, finding out he is not so bad compared to the situation of the one who gets away, open-mindedly guiding the life orbit of someone of the future generation, getting a cut-rate treatment from a gorgeous escort, hobnobbing amicably with an Indian who is endowed with healing power, etcetera), HARRY AND TONTO remarkably has no pretension of being something holier than a faithful record of the signs of the times, the ' 70s zeitgeist (Bill Conti's sublime piano recital is too copacetic a blessing here), also cardinally, a realism-inflected heart-warmer that holds tenderness and wistfulness dear to both its heart and its salt-and-pepper protagonist.
referential entries: Mazursky's BOB & CAROL & TED & ALICE (1969, 7.7/10); John Hughes' PLANES, TRAINS & AUTOMOBILES (1987, 7.3/10).
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