The Heart is a Lonely Hunter: A Review

THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER

The pain of the silent heart is explored in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. This adaptation of Carson McCullers' novel is steady and moving if at times a bit overacted by the most unlikely source. 

John Singer (Alan Arkin) is a deaf-mute jeweler in the South. His BFF, Spiros Antonapoulos (Chuck McCann) is like him a deaf-mute. Unlike Singer, Antonapoulos is rather childlike in his manner. He will wander around town at night and break bakery windows to get at the food. Antonapoulos' cousin cannot take his relative's latest brush with the law and sends him to a mental hospital. John wants to be closer to him and be his official caretaker. With that, he sets off to another Southern town to live near his bestie.

Singer takes the spare room of the Kelly home. That room was once for the Kelly's oldest child, daughter Margaret, better known as Mick (Sondra Locke). She is unhappy to have a boarder take her room. However, her father Robert (Biff McGuire) is still recovering from hip surgery, and the family needs the money. Singer soon becomes someone that Mick can trust. She yearns for a better, classier life and Singer gives her Mozart recordings, a composer that she loves.

Mick is the first of many people whom Singer touches. There is drunk, disillusioned veteran Blount (Stacy Keach, billed as Stacy Keach, Jr.). He initially mistakes Singer's silence for intense listening. A drunken bout from Blount has both cross paths with Dr. Copeland (Percy Rodriguez). He initially balks at treating Blount as he steadfastly refuses to treat white patients. However, Dr. Copeland will forgo attending to someone "not of his kind" by calling it "emergency treatment". This encounter is fortuitous for Copeland, as he has a deaf-mute patient. The somewhat good doctor swallows his pride and asks Singer to help translate to his deaf-mute patient (Singer can write and read lips).

Copeland has his own problems. His daughter Portia (Cicely Tyson) has married a poor man and become a maid rather than follow in his footsteps. He is also dying of cancer. Blount has a new lease on life when he finds a job as a carnival ride operator. Copeland warms up to Singer. Even Mick starts coming around to this silent and caring man. Mick also starts coming into her own. She even has a pinup of Leonard Bernstein on her wall. She also finally gets to host a party for her classmates despite her mother's (Laurinda Bennett) misgivings. Here, she meets Harry (Wayne Smith), her frenemy's older brother. 

A shocking act of violence ties Copeland and Blount. Portia grows angrier at her father as does Mick at her parents over the Kelly's dire financial situation. Singer finds Antonapoulos hard to handle on their first outing. As the summer comes to a close, not everyone will survive. For those left behind, only with absence do they see how important John Singer was.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter has some problems. At a little over two hours long, it feels a bit longer than it should. Some things seem to be forgotten. Early in the film, Mr. Kelly is seen working on a watch to make a little extra money. We know that Singer is a jeweler who specializes in watches. The sign outside the Kelly home also notes that they have fast watch battery services. Yet, we never see anyone working on watches after Singer arrives. Singer is never shown working or even going to or from a jewelry store. It strikes me as odd that Mr. Kelly or Mr. Singer never dealt with watches again.

The subplot involving the Copelands was also curious. Granted, the white woman whose blouse was torn could have or should have said that she fell. The men with her should have seen the fall. In this case, I think the resulting brawl happened because the plot required it to. Here, oddly, is where I think we got a bad performance.

Cicely Tyson was one of our great actresses. However, her performance as Portia seemed a bit exaggerated, almost silly in her rage. Her drunken reproach to her father about his refusal to perjure himself had me smiling and close to chuckling. I do not think that was the intention. I did not understand why Portia thought her strict father would be willing to commit perjury, especially given that witnesses would know that he was not present when Willie was attacked or stabbed someone.

As a side note, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter has an issue whenever someone is supposed to be drunk. Both Tyson and Stacy Keach looked exaggerated when they were meant to be boozing it up. I do not know if director Robert Ellis Miller could not get his actors to play their roles with more realism or not. I do know that the end results from some of the cast looked forced.

That is not the case, however, with everyone. Both Alan Arkin and Sondra Locke received Oscar nominations for Lead Actor and Supporting Actress for The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Both of them were warranted. Arkin is a curious case in that a lot of his performance is passive. I trust that his American Sign Language was accurate as there is no way of knowing for someone not versed in ASL. I think that, like the characters in the film, the audience reads whatever it reads into the film in Arkin's performance. It is almost an hour before we see any suggestion that Singer has emotions. Arkin communicates what he does with his face and eyes. Sometimes, though, we see his world in unusual ways. At one point, Singer joins Mick in conducting a Mozart recording. He continues doing so after the record ends, unaware that the music stopped.

Sondra Locke in her film debut was excellent as the tomboyish Mick. Locke was older in real life than her character (she was older than her on-screen boyfriend even though he was supposed to be at least two years older). Despite this, Locke communicated her longing for a better life. She is moving when comforting her beloved Poppa or struggling with Momma. Locke also has a surprisingly amusing manner when dealing with Mick's pesky brothers. They, along with their friend, were horrid to crash her party with fireworks. Her rage and efforts to be "the adult" among her peers is both amusing and moving. 

She is also surprisingly gentle when with Wayne Smith's Harry. Their romance is soft and slow. Even their eventual consummation is handled with surprising restraint. 

It is the rest of the cast that seems at times to struggle with Thomas C. Ryan's screenplay. As mentioned, both Keach and Tyson seem a bit exaggerated for things. Percy Rodriguez was somewhere in the middle. His Dr. Copeland seemed a bit too much when playing the rigid, somewhat prejudiced person. Sometimes, though, he was also moving. There is the scene where he reveals his cancer diagnosis. 

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter explores these disparate lives through the eyes of a man who cannot speak. With strong performances from Alan Arkin and Sondra Locke, it is worth viewing.     

DECISION: C+