Being There

1979 comedy


Rating: 16/20


Plot: Chance is a gardener working at a Washington D.C. property which he has never left. His only knowledge of the world comes from watching television--news shows, Sesame Street, exercise programs, commercials. His elderly employee dies, the maid leaves, and Chance has to enter the world for the first time. Shirley MacLaine's limo backs into his leg, and he's taken to the mansion of her rich dying husband to recover. The movers and shakers of Washington mistake his peaceful simple ignorance and ramblings about gardening (the only topic he knows anything at all about) for peaceful Zen-like profundity and political/economic metaphor and accept him into their world. Then Shirley MacLaine touches herself.


If the idea of Shirley MacLaine masturbating excites you, this is your movie. Peter Sellers' performance was quietly exceptional, and although the movie is far from perfect (for one, it's too long; for two, there are scenes that seem written for televised sketch comedy), he brings it much closer to perfection. There's a great, unexpected ending which leaves everything completely open to interpretation, and the satire (on television, on politics, on projection) makes this a thinking-man's comedy. I, of course, didn't get any of that; I only laughed at the conversational slapstick and at Shirley MacLaine pleasuring herself while Chance watches television and stands on his head. Good performances and a great script.


I watched this in my bed: