Padre e hijo

The male response to "Terms of Endearment" fails badly at all levels as it's neither charming with its chaotic humor and neither fully satisfies as a drama. It breaks my heart to see Paul Newman being lead actor/director/writer of a piece so strange, trying to be too many things all at once and not delivering a single right note that makes us care for it. It's one of those cases that you may enjoy the performances (as he got a great ensemble with Ellen Barkin, Wilford Brimley, Judith Ivey, Ossie Davis, Morgan Freeman and Newman's wife Joanne Woodward), enjoy some of the situations but you won't feel relating with anybody and won't learn anything from it, as the mountain of cliches pile up with almost no reward.

The relationship between a sick father (Newman) and his young son (Robby Benson) is given an awkward treatment as they swing back and forth between good buddies to unknown figures to each other who bicker for pointless things, or at times because the idealist promising writer fails to sustain a work. I sort of related with the sensitive kid failing at all the works he applied since he's totally wrong for it, and only writing could help him to come out to life (but his writing sucks, the little it was shown).

Why "Harry and Son" is so weak and never fully works? Newman's character is too stubborn, deeply rooted in his own persona and only thinks about himself; and even when he gets a new chance at love, with the advances from a friend of his deceased wife, he becomes a rude figure. With his son, it gets wildly confusing as to what he really wants from the boy, reaching a point where he kicks him out of home just because his room was a mess, and if one looks back at their very first scene, having a dinner by candlelight and having a nice talk, they never were the kind of men who were against each others throat. As the father's disease is never mentioned (neither treated) I assume he has a brain tumor that makes him such an erratic man, who barely generates any sympathy from the audience.

But what irritated me the most was the bizarre balance of comedy and drama, as none of them are convincing or interesting. Take the famous dish breaking scene where the guys invite the sister/daughter and her husband to lunch and Newman presents his daughter with some fancy dishes from the family and makes a whole "prank" that the estimated dishes break, much to the woman's horror, and ours as well. It goes from slightly funny, to heavily dramatic as she leaves the house, moves back to funny as Newman falls on the same prank while cleaning everything, a chase ensues around the house and then moves to more drama as he feels sick. It's the kind of thing it'd work in literature, here it just try so hard in getting a rollercoaster of emotions that you don't know for whom to care or reject. The whole film goes in between too much drama, too much comedy and it hardly gets right at any of those.

For a higher analysis, "Harry and Son" proves that some people will never grow or they'll never have the ability to change; others will have changes forced upon themselves way before their times and all the learning must be done quickly. But I've seen better with such proof. As a personal project for Mr. Newman, this lacked coherence, passion and heart. Like his character, a demolition crane operator, he crashes everything down in what could be a good film. 5/10.

The reason I have such fond memories of this movie is because I remember how I felt (and still do - but it's not the same as the first time) the first time I saw it on video, in maybe 1993, and the feelings it provoked in me.

I graduated from high school in 1984, the year the film was made, and my mother had passed away earlier in 1979, leaving me to grow up after 13 years of age with my father and younger sister. My older brother was soon to go into the Air Force, and my older sister was already away to college. While there were many differences between Paul Newman's character and my own father, the fundamental relationship he had with Robby Benson was right on the mark with me and my father. My father died when I was 26, in 1993. I think that Robby Benson's character was a few years younger when his dad in the movie died, but it was close enough to hit home with me. I, like the Benson character, was a little aimless after high school, and my father did seem to have more patience with me at times, he could give me some harsh input at other times. And my father went for 10 years without dating anyone after my mother passed away, but towards the end of his life he did find a woman that he had a lot of fun with, and we all did things together at times as well. My father was also about the same age as Newman's character when he died, and I was present right after he had his final heart attack and died at home.

Now that I have explained some similarities with my life and the movie, I'll get back to why I liked the movie so much. It wasn't because of the coincidental similarities between my life and the movie, but because my life is real, and many people have many of these same basic father-son dynamics, and the writers(half Newman), actors (big part Newman), and director (Newman again)somehow pulled off an amazing dose of reality with this film that is common to all of us. Newman just commits himself so honestly. He has that seriousness in his character that at times is how many capable, grounded, but real fathers are; sometimes mixes it up with a humor that is just as honest and bold, maybe even irreverent, and then other times when they're with their sons and they have a 'comradery'. And then other times when fathers are just plain irritated, and the son knows he's on his father's bad side at the moment, and he should be worried, but he also knows that his father is a softy down deep. However a son would never challenge him and expect that soft side, and the son also instinctively knows that his father isn't perfect but he is much wiser than the him, and he certainly knows the father really does love him and has the son's best interests at heart.

To summarize, first of all the performances in this movie are of a Team who were in touch with the bareness and essence of our life, of our American society and family reality. And then secondly, they somehow manage to give it back to us for us all to see on the screen, and allow us to see ourselves in a new and deeper way. I understand myself and my relationship with my father, and his relationship with me, a little better because of this movie. And that is the goal of any art, and should be the goal of people intending to make good movies. Because this movie taught me so much, I have to say that it I value it is a great movie, it (the whole Team) delivered what might be expected from the title and beyond; it was heart breaking and heart warming, it was meaningful, and I had fun watching it!. Thanks to the whole Team, but a very special thanks to Paul Newman!

Pat Wilson

Paul Newman plays Harry Keach , a father who has been widowed for two years , who works as a demolition crane operator . He loses his hub due to a medical condition and finds himself battling his son and other personal demons .

When you think of Paul Newman films you don't think of Harry & Son and for good reason . This overlong , melodramatic film , directed by Newman is definitely not his best work .

It's nearly two hours of nothing much which ends extremely abruptly . Almost as if they ran out of money!

It definitely has the feel of a TV movie but actually wasn't .

Newman , unsurprisingly is the best thing about this film along with his real life wife , Joanne Woodward , but I haven't addressed the elephant in the room yet and that's Robby Benson who plays Howard , the son.

What a terrible actor ! He prances around looking like a cheep John Travolta, in a pair of shorts that should be on a twelve year old boy , flashing his eyelashes and whispering every line as if he's trying to be Brando . The worst thing is he has a massive amount of screen time as well .

He really is appalling and it's no wonder I've never seen him In anything since.

It was interesting to see a young Morgan Freeman in a small cameo and Wilfred Brimley whois criminally underused.

Unless you are a massive Paul Newman fan ( and I am ) , then I wouldn't bother .

You see, it can be done. It is possible, even in the last decades of the 20th century, to make a good feature film that concentrates on character and eschews action. We don't need car chases to help us through the story, because we care about Harry and Howie and want to see what befalls them. Paul Newman co-wrote, directed and produced this absorbing tale of father and son, continuing his long tradition of intelligent movie-making.

Harry works the wrecking ball on a demolition site. He is a gruff, inarticulate fifty-something who likes his job. Howie is maybe 20, a dreamy young man who wants to be a writer. He has no real work, dividing his time between the car wash where he has a part-time job, his surf board and the family's hot tub, in which he does most of his writing.

And therein lies the conflict which drives this story. Harry was brought up not to question the importance of working for a living. His inflexible blue-collar morality is offended by Howie's lazy, self-indulgent lifestyle. Howie, on the other hand, grew up in a climate where self-expression and leisure activities count for more than the humdrum business of earning a living.

A medical condition forces Harry out of his job. Newman is impressive as the ageing, weakening man's man who is gutted by the loss of his livelihood, because to him it means the loss of his validity as a man. He sees Howie's vitality and intelligence and cannot come to terms with his son's lack of ambition. In one of their regular fights, Harry encapsulates the situation neatly. "I want a job and can't get one," he tells Howie. "You can, and don't."

Bright and personable, if a little too pretty in the John Travolta way, Bobby Benson plays Howie with enthusiasm. The contrast between the dour widower and his cheerful, energetic son is nicely conveyed. Supporting the two central performances are Joanne Woodward as Lillie and Ellen Barkin (Katie). Lillie is a friend of the family who develops a 'thing' about Harry. Her daughter Katie is a girl of easy morals whose relationship with Howie rekindles after a break-up.

Nice touches include the black screen at the very start which is shattered by Harry's wrecking ball, and the backlighting which gives Katie a 'halo' as she sets out her ethical position. I didn't like the too-convenient cheque which arrives from John Davidson or the ease with which secretary Sally can be suborned for sex. For me, Benson overacts horribly in the 'discovery' scene. Indeed, what happens to Harry is an unnecessarily dramatic event in this gentle, understated film.

The narrative line of the script is scattered and seems to pick up ideas and problems and then drop them without resolution to tackle some other tangential issue. The issues all pertain to the relationship between the father and son but it would have been better to focus more on their interaction and less on exterior forces. Benson tries in the lead but just is not that strong of a screen presence especially when competing with Newman's star power. The rest of the cast is certainly talented even if what they are handed character wise is diffuse. It is interesting to see some like Freeman and Barkin who went on to long careers just starting out. Not a bad film but very average.