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This film made AFI’s 100 Passions list and I caught it on Turner Classic Movies. This 1950s drama is a classic melodrama, rooted into believable characters and emotions. The short time frame and the hot Southern summer setting heat up the emotions, which makes for great drama as well as great entertainment.

Hal Carter (William Holden, NETWORK) is a drifter, who was once an all-star college athlete. He rolls into a small Mid-West town to see if his college friend Alan Benson’s (Cliff Robertson, SPIDER-MAN) father can get him a job at the family’s grain factory. As Hal tries to find out where Benson lives, he meets the Owens women. Flo Owens (Betty Field, BUS STOP) is the protective mother, who wants her girls to have a better life than she has had. Millie (Susan Strasberg, ROLLERCOASTER) is the 17-year-old tomboy who has won a scholarship to college. Madge (Kim Novak, VERTIGO) is the town beauty, who is unhappily dating Alan.

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Harvey Pekar is the last guy in the world you’d think Hollywood would want to make a biopic about. He’s a balding grump with a raspy voice, who spent his whole life working as a file clerk in a VA Hospital in Cleveland. Oh yeah, he also appeared on THE DAVID LETTERMAN SHOW a dozen or so times. Why you may ask? In his spare time, he wrote an underground comic book, which dealt with his day-to-day life.

In the beginning, the drawings for the comic were done by Robert Crumb, the legendary underground comic book artist (to learn more about him watch the amazing documentary on his life and family entitled CRUMB). SPLENDOR is hilarious. I laughed so loud in the theater I was embarrassing my wife. The humor of the film is rooted in the neurosis of the characters. Harvey is pathetic, but down deep he’s smart and has a warm loving soul.

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Based on Chuck Barris’ unauthorized autobiography, the film shows how the host of the GONG SHOW also moonlighted as an assassin for the CIA. You’re probably thinking to yourself, what? Barris, who also created THE DATING GAME and THE NEWLYWED GAME, truly claims in his autobiography that he killed 33 people for his government. Is it true — most people think not — but Barris still sticks by his tale.

In the film, Sam Rockwell (GREEN MILE, MATCHSTICK MEN) plays Barris as a guy who constantly doubts his own achievements. He views himself as someone who has done impressive things but not as impressive as he wishes he could have done. At the height of his fame, TV critics declared him the sole reason for the decline of human society; kind of like the makers of a lot of reality shows are called today. The sad thing is that he believed them. Rockwell plays the conflicted soul of a man who strives for greatness in all the wrong places.

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This film might be one of the most profound viewing experiences I will ever have. My impression of cinema, especially violence on film, has been turned upside-down. To most people (like my wife), this film will be unwatchable. Audience members at the Cannes Film Festival threw things at the screen. Many critics walked out of the press screenings for the film. I haven’t thought about a film so much since I saw MULHOLLAND DRIVE. Part of the film’s profound moments are its own undoing though. Like KIDS, once the shock wears off, IRREVERSIBLE looks kind of thin. By now you’re probably wondering what is so shocking about this film.

First thing to note is that the film runs backwards like MEMENTO. It starts with two men talking about how time destroys all and then two other men Marcus (Vincent Cassel, BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF) and Pierre (Albert Dupontel, ACTORS) get arrested at the gay bar next door. With the camera moving around frantically, we then see Marcus and Pierre frantically looking for a man named the Tenia (Jo Prestia, FEMME FATALE). This search leads up to a brutal beating where a man’s head is crushed with a fire extinguisher without the camera ever looking away. A few more scenes that precede the brutal beating have Marcus and Pierre search for the Tenia. Then comes the scene that is the crux of people’s hatred for this film. We see Alex (Monica Bellucci, THE MATRIX RELOADED) enter an underground walkway were she is raped and beaten by the real Tenia, who isn’t the man who was beaten. This scene is nine minutes long. I read that in reviews before watching the film and it really didn’t stick in my mind. Just sit back and think about rape for nine minutes. It’s pretty unbearable, huh? Just think what it’s like watching it.

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