The Humbling Review

Posted 9 years ago by myetvmedia

Given the somewhat cool and disdainful reception to the Roth novel of the same name, Barry Levinson’s film adaptation The Humbling is an astonishing surprise. Al Pacino’s turn as hero Simon Axler is an acting ‘tour de force’. Aside from the fact that I can’t recall a scene where he is not present in the frame, Pacino gives us as honest an understanding of the human condition as one can achieve on screen: despite his larger than life character as an aging stage actor, a lion of the theatre, who has suddenly lost the magic of his craft, in Axler, we see so many people we know in all their fear, insecurity, flawed self-understanding and frustrating mortality. Of course, most of us are not suicidal but like Axler we are trying to achieve or recapture the magic and creativity of youth, and in many ways the chapters of our lives are defined by how we gracefully or not deal with it.

Its clear from the outset that Director Barry Levinson remains mostly true to the Roth novel (screenplay by Buck Henry and Michal Zebede) as we see the title credits role, the published novel jacket appears on screen. Beautifully paced, scenes are never rushed and we are given a privileged interior view as if in real time. Words and images linger on screen without sacrificing a mostly linear narrative.

Our protagonist Simon Axler fitfully attempts a failed “Hemingway-esque” suicide with a shotgun, gets admitted to a psychiatric hospital to overcome his alcoholism, delusions and his obdurate self-pity. There he encounters a wacky patient Sybill (Nina Arianda) who tries to solicit him as a hit-man, inspired apparently by a film role where he played a hit-man. While the situation is ludicrous, in a mental institution there is no exaggeration, reality and fantasy are never far from each other; but even when Axler is released after 30 days, the distinctions remain blurred and more ludicrous circumstances follow. Enter Pageen (Greta Gerwig), a thirty something Lesbian with a strong connection to Axler’s past (she is the daughter of one his close friends and stage peers). She takes up with Axler to satisfy a childhood crush, then obsession and in a pathetic but entirely credible way, invigorates the aging actor to aspirations of fatherhood, a return to the stage and new sexual adventures. She has a battery of sexual toys, and admits to Axler, “you haven’t fucked the lesbian out of me yet”. Despite this admission and warnings from past lovers, including a transexual, Axler persists and is seemingly transformed by his peculiar lover.


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The Humbling Review

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