Review of Jack Goes Boating

For its humor, emotional honesty, and glimpse of almost unfathomable decency in a world as untidy as Hoffman's Rastafarian locks, this film rises to a place among my all time favorites-- along with David Mamet's "State and Main". Although Hoffman's wonderfully imagined writer in the Mamet film shares some of Jack's ingenuous sensibility, Glaudini's writing and Hoffman's embodiment invest the doughy type with the necessary twiggy fiber to make the character heart-achingly real. Trailers and reviews give lots of specifics about plot, but thankfully do not catalogue all the film's pleasures. Jack and his boating date, Connie, are both outsiders and both uncannily patient-- driven perhaps more by uncompromising values than by fear. Clyde and Lucy, the aggressively magnanimous pair who mentor the new couple provide an important counterpoint. And all four actors in these central roles leave their egos someplace outside the frame enabling us to enjoy every surprising ripple of character. With the plot's unfolding, we are not taken for a ride but for a journey.