Considering his literary prominence and popularity, Kurt Vonnegut Jr’s big-screen footprint is awfully small. And this attempt, director George Roy Hill’s squarely realist adaptation, which failed commercially and as film, helps explains why. The fantasmagoric tale of Billy Pilgrim, a sort of mid-20th Century Holy Fool, drifts thru an eventful life in jump cuts of time & space, finding love, war, whimsy, kids, afterlife, but never the manner of bemused horror Vonnegut gets on the page. Instead, a curdled mass of irony, fear, defeat & acceptance, a ‘one damn thing after another’ cracker barrel philosophy. (‘And so it goes,’ as the book has it.) Hill too flatfooted, too literal to bring off the coy conceits and wacky juxtapositions. (Imagine a young, budget-constricted Tim Burton on it.) Acting no help either; debuting Michael Sacks’ aw-shucks confusion as Billy Pilgrim progresses across time, place & incident without selling us on the concept or on him. (He’d shortly do better for Steven Spielberg in THE SUGARLAND EXPRESS/’74, but saw his career fizzle out by the early ‘80s. While in support, Eugene Roche (tragic mentor) and Ron Leibman (obnoxious naysayer) make obvious acting choices. Don’t blame them, or Hill, the more likely fault is that Vonnegut off the page and made flesh is hard to believe in.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: For what it’s worth, Mike Nichols also came a cropper with this sort of thing on CATCH-22/’70; while Lina Wertmuller (generally not a fan here) had quite the success (deservedly so) with similar ideas in SEVEN BEAUTIES/’75.
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