PrimeWire

“As long as the roots are not severed, all is well. And all will be well in the garden.”

This is a quietly brilliant, hilarious, heart-wrenching and heart-warming motion picture that showed how great Peter Sellers (Oscar-nominated) was and how limitless his range was. He stars as a gardener at an old mansion in Washington, D.C. who has never been outside of the owner’s small piece of property. When the owner dies, he has to leave the only home he has ever known. Sellers has no knowledge of anything except what he sees on television and he has a strange sort of child-like innocence that endears him to all he comes into contact with. After a minor accident, Sellers is taken to the home of a ridiculously wealthy political lobbyist (Melvyn Douglas in his second Oscar-winning performance) who is literally being kept alive as he has a rare form of cancer. Douglas immediately takes a liking to Sellers and so does his much-younger wife (Shirley MacLaine). Sellers is now in the spotlight though as he gets to meet the president (Jack Warden) and slowly starts to gain popularity and political support from those around him. Of course Sellers does not realize any of this as his understanding of such things are beyond his somewhat limited mental capabilities.

This movie is simply a brilliant film that is carried by Sellers’ amazing personal best performance. Everyone else is adequate, but this is Sellers’ show. Douglas won the Oscar mainly due to sympathy votes, but surprisingly Sellers would die before Douglas as he passed away less than six months after receiving his Oscar nod of a massive heart attack. As good as Dustin Hoffman was in “Kramer vs. Kramer”, I still wish that Sellers would have won the Oscar for this role which is one of the finest performances ever throughout the entire history of the cinema.

The reputation of this film has risen steadily over the last years and rightfully so. Jerzy Kosinski’s novel is transferred to the screen into a dark (literally down-lit) and sombre comedy by director Hal Ashby, who managed to make an expertly paced film, consistent in tone and mood. The film boasts great performances by veteran Melvyn Douglas and Shirley Maclaine, who even does a masturbation scene! But it’s Peter Sellers who enters the pantheon of the all-time legendary performances with a simply magnificent portrayal of Chance Gardener. For long this was his pet project and for over nine years he tried to get it filmed. When it was finally green-lighted, he painstakingly researched and prepared for the role. The voice in particular demanded his attention as he listened to his own voice on a tape recorder and endlessly compared one sound to another. Forget about comparing his role to Tom Hanks with “Forrest Gump”, the other mindless observer of American society. It doesn’t even come close. Tom Hanks got the Oscar but Peter Sellers gives his character an unmatched complexity in a far superior film, that if anyone should get the Oscar, it’s Sellers.