Macon Leary (William Hurt) is a travel writer who specializes in helping business travelers avoid unpleasant surprises on their journeys – by finding the most authentic American cuisine, by booking the hotel that most resembles a local Travelodge, by being sure to take a book along so that they are not disturbed by the person in the next seat. His guide series is called The Accidental Tourist. A fellow passenger on one flight confides in Macon, “I tell my wife, going with the Accidental Tourist is like going in a cocoon.”
Macon is very good at what he does because he lives in exactly the way he advises business people to travel: by shunning spontaneity, by rejecting all possibility of adventure, by building a wall to keep out the unexpected. A year ago, however, the unexpected made a sudden and tragic appearance in Macon’s life: his son was killed by a gunman attempting to rob a fast-food joint.
While Macon attempts to bottle up his grief and resume the rigidly proscribed existence he had maintained until the death of his son, life continues to infringe on his battered cocoon. His wife Sarah (Kathleen Turner) announces she is leaving him, he falls down the stairs and hurts his back, his dog starts biting people, and he breaks his leg. Meanwhile the pain of his loss is threatening to overwhelm him.
In the midst of this angst descends an eccentric angel, a dog trainer named Muriel Pritchett (Geena Davis). Muriel offers the consolation Macon needs to soften his grief and allows him to begin to experience a more spontaneous way of being.
But the attraction of the cocoon is still very powerful and in spite of the best efforts of Muriel and the example of his publisher (Bill Pullman), a long-time bachelor living in a singles building who falls in love with Macon’s sister, he falls back into his old way of thinking and living. The rest of the film sees him wavering between the cocoon and the adventurous life.
At over two hours long, The Accidental Tourist could have been cut to 90 minutes without any loss of thematic integrity and with a significant increase in its dramatic impact. Yes, we know that it is not easy for an individual who fears the unexpected to open up and accept the fact that life happens; it is especially challenging after life deals a painful blow.
But this is a movie, folks, not a nineteenth-century Russian novel, so we expect things to move along at a pace that keeps us engaged with the struggle of the main character. In this film I found myself wanting to yell at Macon that he had better get over himself pretty damn quick or I would hit the fast-forward button.
William Hurt is a good choice for the part of Macon Leary; his generally “minimalist” acting style makes for a believable main character. Geena Davis’s Muriel is a wonderful blend of the quirky and the traditional, while Kathleen Turner plays a restrained version of herself.
I truly wanted to like this movie as The Accidental Tourist is one of those “little stories” – ordinary people struggling with the acceptance of a universal truth or wrestling with a great dilemma – that I am always drawn to. Unfortunately, the struggle here is so protracted that it becomes tedious, giving rise to my own struggle to keep my focus all the way to the final scenes.
Image Credit
Wikipedia “The Accidental Tourist Poster”
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