the accidental tourist ebert

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Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, 'tourist' gives geena davis a place in sun.

LOS ANGELES " The Accidental Tourist " is one of the bleakest comedies I've ever seen, a movie so sad you can hardly believe you're laughing a lot of the time, and that you're walking out of the theater feeling good. A lot of that credit for that paradox belongs to an actress named Geena Davis , who walks into the movie and walks out with William Hurt 's dog.

It happens like this. He meets her in an animal kennel. His young son has been killed by a random act of violence, and his wife has announced that she has to leave him because he is incapable of feeling anything. He is depressed almost to the state of paralysis, and his dog is feeling the same way. So he takes the dog to a kennel, and Geena Davis is waiting there for him, and he's a neurotic time bomb but she doesn't care, because she knows this is the right man for her.

Her character is named Muriel, and Muriel is the character that made Anne Tyler 's The Accidental Tourist one of the best-selling novels in recent years. Half the younger actresses in Hollywood were mentioned for the role, and a lot of them auditioned for it. Geena Davis got to play Muriel after three auditions and a screen test, and I would be very surprised if she is not nominated for an Academy Award on the basis of it. She is wonderfully funny, and filled with an abundance of life and goofy courage.

You may remember her from earlier movies, or maybe not. She's a tall, leggy, brunet with a big smile and a sexy overbite, who got her first break in " Tootsie " and her first major role in "The Fly," playing opposite the man who would become her husband, Jeff Goldblum . In that movie she was a reporter who believed Goldblum's strange story of an experiment gone wrong, believed it enough to stay by him when he began his gruesome transformation. Her next big hit was " Beetlejuice ," where she played a woman who haunts her own house.

"I responded to his need in a pretty profound way," she said of "The Fly." "It was a romance that had to work, so that people would believe I would stick around when his ears started falling off." In "The Accidental Tourist," she has a role that is actually somewhat similar, except that the William Hurt character suffers psychic damage instead of physical disintegration.

Geena Davis is surrounded by excellence in the movie - by Hurt, by Kathleen Turner , by a supporting cast of lovable eccentrics - but hers is the performance that makes the others work so well. She is the healer. You sense that right from the first moment she appears on the screen. The downcast and depressed Hurt limps into her animal kennel and wonders and if she could board the animal for a few days. He's a travel writer and he's going out of town.

Davis says sure. No problem. That's how she talks. Short, clipped, each sentence punctuated with a full stop. Then she gives Hurt her name. Her whole name. And information on how to reach her. Just in case. And maybe they could have lunch or dinner. Something like that. Sometime. If he's in the mood. Hurt is too dazed to absorb all of this, but he hands his dog into the care of this strange woman, and before long he has placed his life in her hands, as well.

"Muriel somehow knows that this is it," Davis was explaining to me the other day. "This is the guy. Her internal motor tells me so. The way I acted the scene was, I told myself that Muriel had figured that today was a different day than any day in her life, and the man for her was gonna walk through the door."

Why would she be attracted to a man who is obviously such a problem? Who mumbles under his breath and doesn't look up and isn't even sure if his dog likes him?

"Muriel has been involved with this kind of person before. The walking wounded. Muriel has had such a hard life herself, it's given her a sensitivity to that kind of thing. When she follows him to Paris on the plane, she says, You need me. I just know that I'm good for you. Of course he resents this. But it's the truth."

In the movie, the William Hurt character is a travel writer who writes books for people who don't want to travel, advising them how to have as little contact as possible with anyone in the places where they visit. This is a philosophy he takes to his heart. He comes from an eccentric family, and has a sister ( Amy Wright ) and two brothers ( David Ogden Stiers and Ed Begley Jr.) who still live at home, maintaining a tightly knit routine that becomes increasingly hilarious as the movie goes on.

Hurt and his wife (Kathleen Turner) have been trapped in a deep depression for a year, ever since a man walked into a fast-food restaurant and shot some people, including their son. When she says she must leave him, in one of the movie's first scenes, we see that she is correct. They loved each other, but now it has all turned to ashes.

The movie was directed by Lawrence Kasden (" Body Heat ," " The Big Chill "), who told Davis: "You are the life force in this movie. When you come in, a light bulb comes on." Davis said she wanted to find the right tone for Muriel: "I wanted to be careful not to be bitchy or kooky. There were some details in the book that they changed - for example, I was real disappointed not to be able to wear the high spiky heels Muriel wears in the book - but they were good changes, because she's not a nut, she's a single mother who is trying to stay cheerful in the face of a lot of discouraging things in her life."

Saying these things, Davis speaks in a voice that is much different than Muriel's, less clipped, more expansive, and you realize that it was a performance, of course. That's the tricky thing about great performances in great movies: They make such an impression that you have a tendency to treat the actors as if they were the people they were playing. I asked her about her speech, since she makes it one of Muriel's most infectious traits.

"In my personal life I get self-conscious about talking," she admitted. "Am I talking too long? I kind of trail off at the ends of sentences, out of embarrassment. That's something I had to fight with this character. I think everything she says she thinks is worthwhile, and she's gonna speak up. I had to overcome my personal reserve about being that forward, and being able to look people in the eye."

And what about the accent? Muriel lives in Baltimore but the accent is harder to put down.

"This is the first time I've done those sorts of details, thought about how I speak and everything. In other movies I've more of less talked like myself. I started exploring a Baltimore accent, and there are elements of it that I lifted, like the Cyndi Lauper l's and the hard r's. The book talks about how she speaks fast, and I took that as a clue. I loved the book. It made playing the character so much easier. I read it and I said, oh, thank you! It has stuff in there about how Muriel loves country music, and long, complaining ballads about the cold, gray walls of prison, and the sleazy, greasy heart of a man. I love all that stuff. And when I read the script, I was thankful that something like it even existed, let alone if I ever got the part."

Did you meet Anne Tyler?

"It was kind of a profound experience. I didn't know in what awe I held her in until they said she was coming to rehearsal. We all kind of got nervous, like the queen was coming, or some alien being. It was kind of amazing to meet her. She's very beautiful, with a gorgeous calm face, her hair pulled back, she's incredibly elegant. She made me feel like a total geek around her. She came in and we introduced ourselves as our characters. I was almost crying. I said, Hi, I'm Muriel. We could tell that she was meeting her characters in real life for the first time."

With "Tootsie," "The Fly" and "The Accidental Tourist," Davis has started her acting career right at the top, and if she gets Academy recognition in April, it will be right in time for her next movie, a comedy named " Earth Girls Are Easy ." Previewed at last September's Toronto Film Festival, it's a weirdo outer-space musical with a Day-Glo punk look, and Davis plays an earth girl who falls in love with Jeff Goldblum, as a furry green alien.

"We kept saying we'd like to do a romantic comedy together," she said, "and we got `Earth Girls.' We'd still love to do one."

And yet, I said, there's something a little sarcastic about both of you, a certain sense in serious scenes that you may be privately amused.

"I am. I am, and Jeff is, too. It's true. We find a lot of things funny. I remember once we woke up and put on a nighttime interview show, `Nightime,' or `Nightwatch,' or something, and it was 3 in the morning and we didn't put the sound on. Jeff started being the host and I started being the guest, and we were making up dialogue and laughing until I was sick."

She grinned. "And another thing I've started to do is, I pretend to be God. Sometimes Jeff will say something mean to me, and then I'll go into a deep voice and ask him if he knew that God was listening. And he'll say he didn't know I was there. And I'll say, I'm always here."

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Revisit: the accidental tourist.

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The late, great Roger Ebert once called Lawrence Kasdan’s 1988 drama The Accidental Tourist , the most delightful film of the year, but “also seemingly one of the most depressing.” That’s an accurate description of this gentle and sympathetic comedy about a man mourning the loss of his son. Kasdan’s film is so impossibly well-managed tonally that one finishes it in a kind of daze. Scenes of purely human comedy and tragedy with a tempo as relaxed and unpredictable as life itself play against the backdrop of a story about grief and, in some ways, coming back to the land of the living.

Kasdan, the great filmmaker behind 1983’s The Big Chill and 1991’s Grand Canyon , is the reason for this expertly executed tightrope walk. Adapted from Anne Tyler’s novel of the same name, the film follows Macon Leary (William Hurt), an author of travel guidebooks whose marriage to Sarah (Kathleen Turner) is slowly disintegrating a year after the murder of their son Ethan. Ethan was the lone victim of an armed robbery, and Macon is still haunted by the fatherhood of which he was cheated by total chance. To put the nail in the coffin, Sarah announces one morning that she is leaving Macon and has rented an apartment in the city.

The set-up perhaps doesn’t pass the smell test of comic potential, but as scripted by Kasdan and Frank Galati, the movie is a comedy about people rather than their situations. We chuckle and smile upon recognizing the natures of these characters and their witty and sometimes sardonic interactions, but we aren’t meant to guffaw at slapstick or scatology. Simply through the performances by Hurt and Turner, and Geena Davis as another significant character (as well as Amy Wright, David Ogden Stiers and Ed Begley Jr. as Macon’s idiosyncratic siblings), we fall into the unique and downright huggable rhythms of these people. This is most apparent in the first encounter between Macon and Muriel Pritchett (Davis), the canine trainer whose kennel boards Macon’s dog Edward when Macon must take one of his trips to write a new guidebook.

The chemistry between Macon and Muriel – between Hurt and Davis – is palpable right from the start, though the grieving Macon is unable to see it. We notice Muriel’s eyes and demeanor, though, immediately drawn to this handsome man and taken by his manner of speaking and his pure emotional honesty. In his grief, the man has let his guard down a little, and Hurt does an enormously effective job of differentiating the character’s interactions with this woman, whom he likes and is amused by but does not know, and with Sarah, whom he knows very well but no longer feels any connection to.

Davis, in an Academy Award-winning performance, is phenomenal in her reading of Muriel as a woman who falls quickly and desperately in love with this sad-eyed and bewildered man, technically abusing her position as his dog’s temporary caretaker to check in on Edward after their business relationship has ended and taking it upon herself to invite him to dinner. The relationship blossoms – not out of a sense of falsely romantic hullabaloo but out of a necessity on the part of these people, both having recently undergone divorces, to connect with another human. Almost serendipitously, then, Macon and Muriel have found each other.

As follows with the unpredictability of life, the movie has surprises in store – among them being the fact that romances can move more like rollercoasters than straight paths. Macon and Sarah reconcile after a realization of each person’s priorities, and they later fall apart again, not because the story needs them to but because the characters seem so real, so genuine, and so fragile. We come to realize that Macon and Muriel would have been better served to be together for as long as Macon and Sarah have, but through coincidence that places the latter pairing in their home once more, the characters also receive an opportunity to learn that lesson in a hard, truthful way.

In case one hadn’t realized just yet, The Accidental Tourist is not really driven by plot, though a pair of events does cause a minimal amount of drama as it enters its final third. A back injury handicaps Macon on his trip to Paris, where Muriel and Sarah (unbeknownst to each other) have followed him in order to win him back and to be his caregiver, respectively. This leads not to false drama or histrionics but to another hard truth for everyone involved. It’s also followed by a final scene that, with a nod and a reciprocated smile (and, for what it’s worth, almost no dialogue), perfectly caps a gentle, honest comedy about fundamentally good, flawed people.

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The Accidental Tourist Reviews

This eccentric family invented by Anne Tyler leaves the page finding strange new life with screenwriter/director Lawrence Kasdan. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Jun 15, 2022

It's perfect in every way -- like Lost In Translation, The Piano and a few others, it's the sort of intimate movie that irrevocably touches certain viewers while leaving the rest shrugging their shoulders.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Dec 28, 2021

As a comedy, Accidental Tourist is smart, witty and sophisticated.

Full Review | Oct 11, 2019

It has that slow rhythm, but without calm, very much to the taste of its director. [Full Review in Spanish]

Full Review | Sep 4, 2019

The strength of the film is that of the novel: an intoxicating brew of irresistable characters.

Full Review | Dec 9, 2017

The emotional complexities unearthed are distinctly adult.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Jul 16, 2015

The film tries so hard to be funny, but ends up feeling like a rejected Woody ALlen script idea.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 15, 2011

A mature, well-made film for teens and adults.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 2, 2011

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 8, 2008

Kasdan's film lacks the spirit of Tyler's novel; he seems to be the wrong director to translate the author's affectionate and humorous treatment of the characters. Fortunately, Geena Davis as the eccentric dog-walker elevates the otherwise morose mood.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Jul 2, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 27, 2005

A genuinely beautiful and human story out of the Hollywood mills. Subtly amazing work from all concerned.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Jun 4, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | May 17, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Feb 5, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 8, 2004

This is a warm movie told in the temperature of almost-recognizable life; it's a believable love story, joked up a bit but not too much.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Apr 20, 2004

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jan 24, 2004

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 5, 2003

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 22, 2003

Beautifully-acted comedy-drama that doesn't overdose on its quirks.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 14, 2003

The Accidental Tourist

The Accidental Tourist is a slow, sonorous and largely satisfying adaptation of Anne Tyler's bestseller of one man's intensely self-contained passage from a state of grief to one of newfound love.

By Variety Staff

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The Accidental Tourist is a slow, sonorous and largely satisfying adaptation of Anne Tyler’s bestseller of one man’s intensely self-contained passage from a state of grief to one of newfound love.

William Hurt is an uptight, travel book writer from the slightly eccentric, financially comfortable Leary family of unmarried middle-aged siblings in this essentially simple narrative story awash in warmth and wisdom about the emotional human animal.

Weighty tone is set from the opening scene where Kathleen Turner, having just made tea for Hurt upon his return from a travel-writing excursion, calmly informs him she’s moving out. Then, in a series of strange, unpredictable and out-of-character encounters with his unruly dog’s trainer (Geena Davis), Hurt finds himself in another, vastly different, relationship. Davis is unabashedly forward, poor, openly vulnerable, a flamboyant dresser and most importantly, has a sickly son (Robert Gorman) who fills the parental void in Hurt’s life.

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That Hurt remains expressionless and speaks in a monotone, except at the very end, puts a damper on the hopefulness of his changing situation. Davis is the constant, upbeat force in the proceedings. Turner is equally compelling and sympathetic throughout.

1988: Best Supp. Actress (Geena Davis).

Nominations: Best Picture, Score, Adapted Screenplay

• Production: Warner. Director Lawrence Kasdan; Producer Lawrence Kasdan, Charles Okun, Michael Grillo; Writer Frank Galati, Lawrence Kasdan; Camera John Bailey Editor Carol Littleton; Music John Williams Art Bo Welch
• Crew: (Color) Widescreen. Available on VHS, DVD. Extract of a review from 1988. Running time: 121 MIN.
• With: William Hurt Kathleen Turner Geena Davis Amy Wright Bill Pullman Ed Begley Jr

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Original movie reviews untainted by time!

The Accidental Tourist

Best of 1988.

https://youtu.be/dlghGP0WYjM Working Girl, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie, The Thin Blue

Talk Radio, Hellbound: Hellraiser II, The Accidental Tourist, The Boost, Pelle The Conqueror, 1988

https://youtu.be/p18VWarfNvk Thanks to andyfilm for transferring the video!

The Accidental Tourist Review

01 Jan 1988

121 minutes

Accidental Tourist, The

In the words of Leary's wife Sarah (Kathleen Turner), he writes for businessmen "so they can travel to the most wonderful exotic places in the world and never be touched by them."

Leary also travels through life without being touched by it. His child was shot dead in a hold-up, and while his wife tries valiantly to come to terms with it, Macon buries the tragedy. One stormy night she walks out, exasperated, and he is left alone with only his dog (the wonderful Welsh corgi Edward) and his bewilderment. Well and truly on a down-curve, he breaks his leg, returns to his eccentric family, refuses to answer the phone and is dragged reluctantly into a relationship with Edward's trainer Muriel Pritchett (Geena Davis, who won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress for her wonderfully quirky performance).

Somehow, The Accidental Tourist manages to be both deeply sad and deeply funny. Hurt's performance is quite extraordinary—baffled by life's injustice, cynical and emotionally barren, he conveys his character on many occasions with merely a facial expression: he is mesmerising to watch. Macon's mad family, Edward the dog and Geena Davis' pushy, slightly bonkers Muriel Pritchett balance his melancholy, and the end result is a quiet, gentle and amusing film. Hardly a smile crosses Macon's heart-broken face until the very last shot, when his slowly unfolding grin, as he realises he's made one good decision at last, is a joy to behold. The sort of video you may well want to immediately rewind and sit through all over again.

Looking at Film from Every Angle

Review: The Accidental Tourist (1988)

Wesley Lovell

The Accidental Tourist

Source Material

Review You can feel the ’80s permeating off this film from the eccentric fashion to the contemporaneous dialogue. Perhaps it made more of an impression in its day, but today it seems hopelessly out of date. The only reason the film succeeds at all is the magic of Geena Davis who enlivens much of the production while William Hurt and Kathleen Turner seem to suck the life out of their own scenes. Davis is the only actor to display anything in the way of credible emotion despite seeming loony for the early parts of the film. Desperate to find someone to be with, she shamelessly flirts with a travel guide writer attempting to kennel his dog while he flies off to write his next book.

Hurt’s writer is damaged goods having lost his son to a senseless act of violence. His only really good scene is when he must identify his son’s body) and his wife has left him because he’s been unable to connect with her. For much of the film Hurt’s performance seems to make sense, but even after he’s realized what he wants to do and who he wants to be with, he doesn’t seem to perk up emotionally leaving us wondering what kind of life it must be to live with him. His family is unnecessarily quirky and doesn’t really seem to be of need to the plot except to stretch it to its two-hour length. David Ogden Stiers, Ed Begley Jr and Amy Wright appear, opine and evaporate. There are a few kernels of wisdom within the framework of the film, but overall it’s a rather pale film lacking imagination or interest. Review Written July 26, 2010

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One response to “Review: The Accidental Tourist (1988)”

This is not a ‘pale film’ but a classic that bears repeated viewing. Finely nuanced characterisation and well-paced plotting throughout. Fully deserving of oscar nominations.

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Review/Film; Going Nowhere, Slowly

By Janet Maslin

• Dec. 23, 1988

Anne Tyler's fiction is as revealing of the tiny intimacies that bind people together as of the larger gaps that keep them apart. A key revelation of character, in one of Miss Tyler's novels, is more apt to occur while someone is driving a car or putting away groceries than during a more conventionally dramatic situation. Her writing is beautifully attuned to the minutiae of daily routines, to the seemingly trivial habits that both define and circumscribe her characters' lives. But in the film version of ''The Accidental Tourist,'' which opens today at Cinema 2, it's the broad strokes that stand out.

''The Accidental Tourist,'' which was unaccountably voted the best film of 1988 by the New York Film Critics' Circle this month, is about a man whose professional life defines his psyche: Macon Leary (Willam Hurt), who has written a series of travel guides for businessmen who wish they could stay home. He roams the world in search of soft bedspreads and American-style restaurants, considering it a victory to ''locate a meal in London not much different from a meal in Cleveland.''

Macon has trained himself to travel light and leave no footprints, and he has channeled all of his fastidiousness into perfecting this as a science. ''There are very few necessities in this world,'' he has written, ''that do not come in travel-sized packets.'' Macon is also, at the time that the story begins, mourning the loss of his only child, a 12-year-old boy who was shot in a restaurant holdup; as a consequence of this, Macon's long marriage to Sarah (Kathleen Turner) has come to an end. But there is reason to believe that this quiet, methodical, pleasure-denying loner wasn't substantially different before these tragedies occurred.

''The Accidental Tourist'' observes the long, slow reawakening that occurs in Macon after he has hit rock bottom. Though this process is presented in tiny, artful increments in Miss Tyler's novel, it's not the kind of transformation that can easily be captured on the screen. For one thing, Macon barely seems to change at all until this lengthy and meandering film is almost over. Mr. Hurt flinches his way through the story with a pained morose expression that doesn't lift until the film's final moments.

''The Accidental Tourist,'' which was directed by Lawrence Kasdan, is the kind of literary adaptation that forgets that films have a language of their own. A lot of Miss Tyler's dialogue is used in the film, but its effect here is very different from its effect on the page. ''There's something muffled about they way you experience things,'' Sarah tells him. ''It's as if you were trying to slip through life unchanged.'' Speaking of the design on the cover of Macon's travel books, she says, ''That traveling armchair isn't just your logo. It's you.''

A novel can successfully incorporate such pronouncements into its larger scheme, but a film is better off conveying the same ideas in more visual and indirect ways. But ''The Accidental Tourist'' often relies on Miss Tyler's methods without tempering them, and gives a tone of crashing obviousness to material that need not have seemed that way. In addition, the screenplay by Mr. Kasdan and Frank Galati doesn't do much to compensate for moments when Miss Tyler's dialogue lacks a conversational ring.

If ''The Accidental Tourist'' is essentially a one-theme story, it nonetheless has a diffuse and rambling plot. Abandoned by Sarah, and living at home with a very unruly dog, Macon eventually breaks his leg and moves in with the rest of his family. In the ancestral house, presided over by Macon's prematurely middle-aged sister, Rose (Amy Wright, who turns this contentedly eccentric character into the film's brightest light), the other Leary brothers have already come home to roost.

Together, the siblings alphabetize things in the pantry, play card games no one else can understand, refuse to answer their telephone and otherwise reinforce the habits that have made it impossible for them to live with anyone else. Only in these family scenes (with David Ogden Stiers and Ed Begley Jr. playing Macon's brothers) does this dark, somber film have any glimmer of vitality or humor.

Also on the scene is a dog trainer named Muriel Pritchett, a pushy, loudly dressed woman whose nonstop chatter serves as the conversational equivalent of shooting herself in the foot. Muriel doesn't hold much allure for Macon at first, but this doesn't stop her; she sets her cap for him anyhow and hounds him until she breaks down his resistance.

The novel treats Muriel as a charmingly offbeat character, but she's abrasively cute even on the page. On film, in the person of Geena Davis (who tries hard but is sandbagged by her role), she is quite insufferable, as is the notion that she represents Macon's emotional salvation.

Kathleen Turner is a welcome presence in the film, but her scenes with Mr. Hurt never suggest the weariness and familiarity of a 20-year union; without this, the wife's function in the story is less clear than it could be. Bill Pullman is nicely enterprising as Macon's publisher, who visits the Leary household as a curiosity seeker and winds up with a lot more than he bargained for.

''The Accidental Tourist'' is rated PG (''Parental Guidance Suggested''). It includes discreet bedroom scenes and mildly off-color language. Leaving No Footprints THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST, directed by Lawrence Kasdan; screenplay by Frank Galati and Mr. Kasdan, based on the book by Anne Tyler; director of photography, John Bailey; edited by Carol Littleton; music by John Williams; production designer, Bo Welch; produced by Mr. Kasdan, Charles Okun and Michael Grillo; released by Warner Brothers. At Cinema 2, Third Avenue at 60th Street. Running time: 122 minutes. This film is rated PG. Macon ... William Hurt Sarah ... Kathleen Turner Muriel ... Geena Davis Rose ... Amy Wright Porter ... David Ogden Stiers Charles ... Ed Begley Jr. Julian ... Bill Pullman Alexander ... Robert Gorman

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The accidental tourist, common sense media reviewers.

A mature, well-made film for teens and adults.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

An unwed couple live together, but the sex is only

Parents need to know that this is a serious film that deals with adult themes of loss, sex, and depression. As such, it's not recommended for all but the most mature preteens and teens. Kids may have a hard time relating to the adult problems and may be disturbed by the weakness of adults portrayed here. They may also…

Sex, Romance & Nudity

An unwed couple live together, but the sex is only suggested. A married couple start to undress each other, but nothing is shown.

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Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that this is a serious film that deals with adult themes of loss, sex, and depression. As such, it's not recommended for all but the most mature preteens and teens. Kids may have a hard time relating to the adult problems and may be disturbed by the weakness of adults portrayed here. They may also be unsympathetic to the carefully drawn characters that resonate with adults. But for families dealing with divorce and other turmoil, the film might be a good way to open the subject of coping with loss and changing family structures. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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What's the Story?

In THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST, Macon (William Hurt) writes travel guides for globetrotters who want adventure-free trips. A year after his young son's death, Macon is further damaged when his wife Sarah (Kathleen Turner) announces she's leaving him. Depressed and alone, Macon's only remaining companions are his bizarre siblings and his dog. The dog's strange behavior leads Macon to Muriel (Geena Davis), a wacky dog trainer who lives alone with her young son. Macon finds Muriel forward and rejects her romantic overtures, but Muriel persists and Macon eventually moves in with her. When his wife Sarah calls, Macon attempts to return to his old life, but realizes that Muriel's extraordinary openness -- her "oddness" as he calls it -- brings him out of his shell and makes him a better person.

Is It Any Good?

This emotionally harrowing story will be tough going for most children. The depiction of a man who has shut down emotionally -- who no longer experiences life on any level -- is quite foreign to most children. They might be confused by seeing such weakness in an adult, as many kids believe that grownups are always strong and in control. And kids might not be ready to appreciate some of the movie's subtle strengths, like the wonderful eccentricities of Macon's family.

Still, there is good deal to admire in this Oscar-nominated picture. The poignant screenplay was adapted from Anne Tyler's best-selling novel, and the cinematography evokes a sense of timelessness. The acting is strong throughout, especially Geena Davis in her Oscar-winning turn as an eccentric animal behaviorist. Hurt is perfectly cast as the guy who writes travel guides for business travelers who don't really want to go anywhere. But there's complexity and a wry wit beneath his chilly exterior. Audiences will smile when he says "I really don't care for movies. They make everything seem so . . . close up."

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the mature themes discussed in this film, including overcoming loss and the fallibility of parents and other adults. What loss has each family member experienced, and how have they dealt with it? How can families use loss to bring them closer together?

Movie Details

• In theaters : April 3, 1988
• On DVD or streaming : February 21, 1995
• Cast : Geena Davis , Kathleen Turner , William Hurt
• Director : Lawrence Kasdan
• Studio : Warner Bros.
• Genre : Drama
• Topics : Book Characters
• Run time : 123 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG
• MPAA explanation : mature themes and sexuality.
• Last updated : October 7, 2022

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The Accidental Tourist

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Review by joshmatthews Patron

The accidental tourist 1988 ★★★★.

Watched Dec 14 , 2023

joshmatthews’s review published on Letterboxd:

If you think William Hurt is a slow-talking sadsack and you hate this, never watch this movie.

For film criticism, it's instructive to read both Pauline Kael's review and Roger Ebert's review. It's as if they watch two completely different movies while describing the same material.

Letterboxd users, giving this a 3.3 average, are on the Kael side. Meanwhile, I'm more on Ebert's. I like Hurt in just about everything, and his sadsackery has weight: he's tragically lost a son, cannot get over that grief, and in the first scene his wife separates from him.

The movie's literary themes are probably too obvious. Hurt works as a travel writer for business types. His "accidental tourist" persona emphasizes the need for business travelers to maintain their lives and comfort no matter where they go. That makes, for example, a trip to Oregon just as if you never left your home in Boston -- if you listen to Hurt's advice. Yet when the voiceover reads the book's advice, it comes across with tinges of mockery, weighed down by the dour sadsack tone of the voice.

That describes the movie decently well -- surprisingly funny while being downright grief-stricken. The Hurt character will become his own "accidental tourist," traveling into a new life -- with girlfriend Geena Davis and her young son -- yet of course wanting to carry his old life over into this newer one, just as his travel-advice guide recommends. We know he needs to change, though, and get past his years-long grief.

This is therefore a screwball comedy, the saddest, most dour one you can think of. It's as if a Preston Sturges script overdosed on depressants, then somebody cut three-quarters of its jokes.

Yet the entire movie centers around the dead son. It's one of those movies where the main character really never appears on-screen. You might hate this like Pauline Kael did, but I'm a sucker for the material here and its presentation.

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The Accidental Tourist

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• Common Sense Media Randy White A mature, well-made film for teens and adults.
• Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews Dennis Schwartz The emotional complexities unearthed are distinctly adult.
• Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert I've never seen a movie so sad in which there was so much genuine laughter.
• Cinema Sight Wesley Lovell The film tries so hard to be funny, but ends up feeling like a rejected Woody ALlen script idea.
• EmanuelLevy.Com Emanuel Levy Kasdan's film lacks the spirit of Tyler's novel; he seems to be the wrong director to translate the author's affectionate and humorous treatment of the characters. Fortunately, Geena Davis as the eccentric dog-walker elevates the otherwise morose mood.
• Nick's Flick Picks Nick Davis This is a warm movie told in the temperature of almost-recognizable life; it's a believable love story, joked up a bit but not too much.
• ÜberCiné Gregory Weinkauf A genuinely beautiful and human story out of the Hollywood mills. Subtly amazing work from all concerned.
• Film Frenzy Matt Brunson It's perfect in every way -- like Lost In Translation, The Piano and a few others, it's the sort of intimate movie that irrevocably touches certain viewers while leaving the rest shrugging their shoulders.
• Capital Times (Madison, WI) Rob Thomas Beautifully-acted comedy-drama that doesn't overdose on its quirks.
• United Press International Cathy Burke The strength of the film is that of the novel: an intoxicating brew of irresistable characters.
• Filmcritic.com Christopher Null Hurt is the virtuoso, rising above the Lawrence Kasdan histrionics and some loose acting.
• El Nuevo Herald (Miami) Rene Jordan This eccentric family invented by Anne Tyler leaves the page finding strange new life with screenwriter/director Lawrence Kasdan. [Full review in Spanish]

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