How lovely and placid movie “The Accidental Tourist” is. Adapted from the novel of same name by Anne Tyler it has characters as many would mention as “characters” and not in a single moment mock at them but laugh cheerfully at their behavioral characteristics cuddly and empathetically. It runs at a note of such a precise tuning of its tone through characters that when suddenly things start to happen near the end, we feel completely lost and become wanderlust in a different movie. But only do we realize in the end how in subtle comfort cleverness they have tripped into the situation of this Leary character in us.One of the Leary’s is the film concentrates but it is a film about all the people in it. Macon Leary (William Hurt) is returning from a trip. You see he writes guidebooks for professional travelling men who would hate to be away from home. He advises on not to carry too much of a baggage and have everything of your own, carefully plan yourself, avoid strangers and be with yourself. It sums up Macon for us. He comes back to a gloomy house when his wife Sarah (Kathleen Turner) leaves him. “It seems there need not be any issue at all for problems like this” says Macon to his publisher Julian (Bill Pullman) about his separation. Sarah cannot stand the tightness and unchanged life of Macon after their son Ethan’s death. She loves him but wanted some one who can show the vulnerability of humans.
Macon moves back with his sister Rose (Amy Wright), brothers Charles (Ed Begley Jr.) and Porter (David Ogden Stiers). We understand the nature of Macon when we see his siblings. They are what they are but how they cope with that is the nuances of comedy and learning to accept certain characteristics in people and in us. Macon is numb but not smug, non-reactive but not emotionless. His emotions are what you can term as conditioned. He fights the regular battle what every person does of being steady and staying calm regardless of a situation but he has mastered it with perfection.
He has accepted his son’s loss or so does he tells himself and holds his chin high up for him to move on. He has the face where poetry of melancholy is invisibly written that it feels as if he is telling himself of getting over the pain at every heart beat. He is falling down and in comes a persistent, talkative and flashy personality in the form of a dog trainer Muriel Pritchett (Geena Davis) to train Ethan’s remembrance dog Edward. Yes they end up together but not in the traditional formula. Unlike regular run of the mill, Muriel is open and puts her availability in place. In fact Macon openly rejects in the diplomatically appeased manner possible but she brushes it off and tells to think it over. She is sweetly stubborn.
What happens next might turn off some viewers because they might not be able to alert up after the lethargic but deeply emotional part of the film. It takes a little while and we lure the possibility of fantasy and imagination of bottled up Macon but it is not. It is not inconspicuous for Macon to narrate the techniques and facts of planned travelling as he progresses through the life but never do we doubt the placement of it. It is not for melodrama, not for the stirred up crack pot emotion but for the reason for what it is, purely necessary and beautiful.
Macon makes decisions as easily and as casual as possible when Sarah shows up. We are surprised by the decision but that is where we are in for the real moving on of life. The contrast of two people behaving after a grievance and we see the real couple emerge out. And when the problems arise we doubt the possibility of any complete relationship in between three people. What would you do or plan for when people spring up and ripple the life you had built on the stillness of heart?
Director Lawrence Kasdan not alone spot lights on this person’s sorrow and pain but also peels the layer of this gloomy personality for a chance to be who he really is. How did William Hurt manage to pull off this character of lukewarm procedural personality with a passion for his unperturbed emotion? There can be a mistake in reading this character as an emotionally lazy but he is all the more in need of love and comfort. And Hurt walks off easily as it seem to put forward a performance of great treasure. Geena Davis and Kathleen Turner who never meet in person onscreen provide the variation of these two women in different statures to meet this same man and not alone to try to fall in love but make him flinch when he is pinched.
For all the randomness in the decisions of Macon and of many other characters in the film, it is a mild fantasy in retrospect. The people in the film either know or have felt the warmth of love completely. The people who know believe it is the cure for everything while the people who felt knows that it is stepping stone or an imaginary foundation for a bigger world one would imagine. Love as it the feeling of that uniqueness is termed can be the toughest psychological summarization we could figure upon. The success in sustaining it sometimes is so random that you got to have unplanned travels with haphazard packing.
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