Nobody's Fool
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Movie Reviews of Nobody's Fool
Movie Review: I love this movie!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
It's a movie that I've watched over & over. There's humor, sweetness, and what else can you say about Paul Newman & Jessica Tandy in the same movie!Movie Review: Newman and Tandy Great team
Summary: 5 Stars
This team just rocks! And any number of towns in upstate New York could have fit this site. I loved this movie!Movie Review: Nobody's Fool
Summary: 5 Stars
I am delighted with my purchase which was delivered to Australia in just a few days. Nobody's Fool is a gem.Movie Review: Paul
Summary: 5 Stars
Paul Newman is the best! This movie is so entertaining I watch it at least twice a year!Movie Review: Nobody's Fool - a review of the film after reading the novel
Summary: 4 Stars
I watched "Nobody's Fool" for the third time last Christmas Eve, the difference being that this time I had just read Richard Russo's excellent novel of the same name. Robert Benton has done a brilliant job of adapting the source material, capturing the tone and essence of the story, while compressing 549 pages of text into 110 minutes of screen time. The film, set in North Bath, a faded little town in upstate New York, follows 60 year old Sully (played by Paul Newman), who is described in the novel as "just a lonely, stubborn, unlucky man," between Thanksgiving and Christmas as he works to stay afloat with a bum knee, few prospects and "a stupid streak" looming ahead.
In the film some of the background stories have been trimmed out but are often hinted at through a comment or the action. In one scene, which is changed from the novel, Sully is in the abandoned house of his long deceased father and Newman is able to convey much of the pain associated with that physical space just through a subtle change in his facial expression. This scene vividly illustrates the strengths of Benton's adaptation - he trusts the audience's intelligence and uses the cinematic medium to tell the story. A lesser filmmaker would have used the novel's technique of inserting a flashback from Sully's childhood into the scene.
Benton's film lightens the darkness and desperation of Sully's life as it's presented in the novel, choosing instead to put greater emphasis on the humour that is also a major strength of the book. The change in tone in some cases is also accompanied by a change in plot development. At times this variation from the novel is not entirely successful. For instance, the film's depiction of the unfolding of Sully's relationship with Toby Roebuck (played by Melanie Griffith) seems less realistic than the way it's presented in Russo's book. The novel is able to achieve this aim, however, by taking the time to devolop the character of Sully's son, Peter, significantly more. But this is a minor quibble. The film compensates for this easily overlooked flaw through the many other pleasures it delivers, foremost among them the presentation of some very three dimensional characters.
The film is very well cast - I can't imagine anybody but Newman playing Sully, Jessica Tandy playing Beryl Peoples, Bruce Willis playing Carl Roebuck, Griffith playing Toby Roebuck and especially, Pruitt Taylor Vince playing Rub Squeers.
"Nobody's Fool" is one of the underrated gems of the 1990s and I would strongly recommend it. It's also a superb adaptation of an equally great novel. Hopefully, for some viewers watching the film will lead to a wish to become more deeply immersed into its world by also reading Russo's book.