The King of Marvin Gardens

The King of Marvin Gardens was Bob Rafelson's experiment at doing a film where the leads are switched around- the actors playing them, anyway. You rarely get to see Jack Nicholson in the role of the quiet, observant, and really more intuitive characters in any film, and to see it in his prime in-between doing films like Carnal Knowledge and The Last Detail is a revelation. Every once in a while he pulls out a performance that is attuned to a sensibility that is surprising, even if the film is not. One of those that worked best was About Schmidt. But this time in Rafelson's vision, he plays second fiddle to the more personable, idealistic, talkative, pushy, and far more conflicted brother played by Bruce Dern. For Dern this is also a somewhat different role, as he often could play roles with a good deal of dialog well, though with also a lowered guard. Here he plays a guy with lots of ideas, and those of which he really wants to impress upon his more detached but not too unresponsive brother. It's a mix that works, though it's very understandable why I've only seen it once, and not only do I not really desire to see it again, it's not too much of a wonder why its still one of the real underrated films of the 70s.

Keep in mind it's not just the men to see here, but Ellen Burstyn too, in one of her other great parts of her real prime, as she plays Dern's depressed, loopy, over-the-top girlfriend. She has her counterpart too in Julie Anne Robinson. Her character is maybe a little more like Nicholson's, though not really as withdrawn. These are all characters who are estranged, if not from themselves then from each other, and amid the big plans in the (correctly chosen) sights of dreary Atlantic City they're cast against a glow that just poses a kind of nothingness for them. And in the end, when tragedy strikes, it finally comes when the emotional cork gets pulled completely off. And bookending the film are Nicholson's monologues on the airwaves to his listeners, whomever they may be, and they're some of my favorite scenes I still remember from the film. If it's less than really memorable and affecting like the best of 70s subversive cinema, it's because its content in its low-key ways. It's a smart movie that isn't really at the heights of Five Easy Pieces- Rafelson's masterpiece that's also low-key in its way but reaches higher in psychological hang-ups- but it does come as close as anything the director's done since. Most noteworthy is the challenge of reversing the roles for Nicholson and Dern pays off in that independent-film way. Look for Shining co-star Scatman Crothers in some scenes late in the picture.

Alienation and disconnection -- the uncomfortable mood gripping the nation would soon degrade into deep malaise and acute paranoia as America was stunned and traumatized by revelations of the government's deceptions and lies about the failing war in Viet Nam and then soon enough the vaudevillian scandal of Watergate. This film strives to capture the infinitely subtle drama of when innocence isn't so much lost as it's cynically packaged and sold. Dreams may die hard, but delusions usually expire with barely an audible whimper, and there was no more epic delusion expiring at that moment in our history than the vainglorious belief in the USA's infallibility. God, himself, had ordained this vast land exceptional and anointed its multitudinous inhabitants, or so we'd been told.

Like the crumbling, decrepit, musty seaside resort town which plays host to this tragicomic farce, America was not living up to its slogan as the Shining City on the Hill. Atlantic City in the early 70's not only manifested the startling decay of so much of this nation's urban spaces, but also poignantly symbolized the inner decay of our national psyche. And while it's certainly sad and scary to witness the gruesome, slow, writhing death of the Great American Delusion, it's also somehow comforting and reassuring to know that just beneath the still warm corpse germinates tender seedlings incubating the merest wisps of hope for our nation's future. Amidst the emphatically strained and tortured metaphors which comprise this modest cinematic tragedy lurks genuineness and sincerity and psychological resonance. It's an awkward, peculiar little picture story that will haunt your psyche, if you're not already dead, or too delusional.

I thought this superior to CARNAL KNOWLEDGE and am a bit surprised by the reaction to it at time of release. After FIVE EASY PIECES and before STAY HUNGRY this '72 film was thrown aside and dismissed. I guess Nicholson wasn't using his eyebrows enough for public taste. Bruce Dern gives a superb performance as his shyster-dreamer brother with big plans. Ellen Burstyn is paranoid justifiably and gives a lovely performance. The young girl Julie Ann Robinson is terrible.

A 7 out of 10. Best performance = Bruce Dern. Throw in Scatman and John Ryan and you have a fascinating mood piece. What happened to Bob Rafelson?

Bob Rafelson's followup to Five Easy Pieces. It's a fascinating film that really does not succeed. Jack Nicholson stars as a late night radio personality who receives a call from his estranged brother (Bruce Dern) to bail him out of jail in Atlantic City. After he does so, Dern invites him in on a major real estate deal, buying up a small island in Hawaii. There's not much plot from there. The film progresses into a series of vignettes whose relation is often difficult to determine. Basically, Nicholson, Dern and Dern's two girlfriends, Ellen Burstyn and Julia Anne Robinson, hang around Atlantic City doing weird stuff. Each scene is entertaining enough by itself, but the film doesn't really build, climaxes with a typical 70s bummer and, sort of like Five Easy Pieces, ends on an evocative bit. Here, though, it doesn't have any real meaning. Everything about it seems like a really good movie, but it just doesn't add up to be anything in particular.

This is a brilliant little character study from the fabulous team that brought us the classic "Five Easy Pieces". If this last reviewer didn't get it (and obvious he didn't), than that's his problem. The detail, the beautiful photography, and the incredible use of Atlantic City locations make this film all the more worth while. Shot when Atlantic City was a dying resort town, it is used as a metaphor for this strange symbiotic relationship between two very different brothers. Nicholson as the intelligent David, and Bruce Dern (never better) as the scam artist Jason, out to make a quick buck. Do yourselves a favor, and check out this little gem.