Sometimes A Great Notion

Last year saw the passing of one of the great film actors, Paul Newman. But while attention focused on his on work perfecting performances—and mastering marinades—not much has been written about Newman the director. This, his second effort behind the camera, is a well-crafted adaptation of Ken Kesey’s second novel.

The book’s experimental nature would take a more innovative director than Newman, who instead chooses an easy-going approach with his on-screen technique. Thankfully, there’s still much to recommend. Despite a languorous and at times unfocused pace, the film features sterling work from Newman, Fonda and a story of Biblical proportions which follows the fractured lives of an Oregon logging family who defy the striking unions. Here we find both the solidly liberal Kesey, and Newman playing a subversive game of devil’s advocate: in a year when the miner’s strike is back in the headlines, recession cripples communities, and old-fashioned manliness is back in vogue, this tale should find the audience it has been denied for so long.