King of Marvin Gardens, The (1972)
The King of Marvin Gardens (1972), produced and directed by Bob Rafelson.
Come and hang out with these people for a while:
Jack Nicholson is an introverted essayist on midnight radio. He opens with a long monologue (which turns out to be untrue) about killing his grandfather.
Bruce Dern is his smooth operator big brother, always with a new get rich scheme. Sometimes he's in jail, and he works with a crime gang, dangerous people to know.
Two women just to keep things lively: a mother-daughter pair with delusions of beauty pageants. Ellen Burstyn is mom; this is the only screen credit for the young woman playing her daughter.
Meet them in Atlantic City and count the Monopoly game references. You could say it's about family and dreams. Or not. More of a character study than a tightly plotted drama, but it's fascinating filmmaking with found locations and opportunistic bits of business.
Fine performances by all the principals -- I'll see anything with these three actors. Bruce Dern was always a favorite.
It's an alternate viewport into life. Unlike most fiction, life is often plotless and absurd. In a story you need reasons for what happens; characters need motives. In life the reasons are sometimes too tenuous to be traced and people are irrational and unpredictable, with only the vaguest of motives.
Criterion Blu-ray, part of the "America Lost and Found: The BBS Story" box set. Another very pleasing image.
