The Loneliest Runner

Simply Wonderful performances on a difficult topic. I really liked the actors, and its a shame that Lance Kerwin stopped acting not too long after that, but I hear he is happy on the Christian Ranch he went to, so, There are many good child actors who for some reason or the other have gone on to do other things, but I'm glad for him. I know after reading this comment you might click no, that it was no helpful, and though thats bad, its your choice. However, my purpose here is to backup the comments already stated. (Should I paste it all in again when so many other people have already stated the facts.) No, I didn't think so. So, go watch it, you won't regret it.

This is one of those movies I've never forgotten. It's been stuck in my head since I saw it a long time ago. The agony of a child being embarrassed by his mother for wetting his bed, when he so desperately wanted to stop, is a heart-breaker.

How many times have we, as parents or just people, criticized another person without thinking of how our criticism can hurt? Maybe it's something the person can control and maybe it's not. But our criticism can last and hurt for years, as has my memory of this movie.

I don't remember if the mother in this film took her child to a doctor. Even if she had, she wouldn't have gotten much help. Fortunately now, medical science can relieve the problems of bed-wetting in adolescents and adults with a simple nasal spray of the hormones lacking in the person, hormones which shut down the kidneys when sleeping.

I first saw this movie as an immature college kid and was amused by the subject matter. I saw it again a few years later, this time as the father of young children. What a different perspective. Watching the manner in which the mother humiliated this poor boy, I vowed NEVER to embarrass my children, especially in front of their friends. My heart ached for the boy in this movie. A great movie for parents to watch - I wish I could run across it again sometime on the tube.

then there's all likelihood that you remember seeing this movie as a kid. i was seven when i saw it on TV and it burned permanent images in my head of the sheet hanging outside of the windows and the humiliation the kid endured. through my life i've referred to it only to find that a large majority of people my age were also scarred by this movie, remember the same images and respond the same way when it's brought up: with a wide-eyed sense of excitement and horror.

a true generational flick.

only recently when one peer said, "hey, 'james at 15' played the kid." was i able to track down the name of it.

yay for the internet!

There's no way I would have ever come across this movie but for belonging to a film club that views movies dealing with the theme of running. Landon has admitted that this poignant bed wetting story was autobiographical; frankly I doubt the squeamish subject matter would have ever been broached (let alone made into a feature length TV movie) without the backing of someone as powerful in television as Landon was in the 70s. Obviously the pain of the experience stayed with Landon because there are strong psychological conflicts and images at work here that seem likely to have come from real life, including the stained bedsheets hanging out the window and the pained, carefully modulated performance by Brian Keith as the father who can't quite stand up to his castrating and selfish wife or his own private demons.

Is it credible and well acted? Definitely. Does Landon demonstrate startling balls and emotion in his blazingly frank depiction of the material? Unquestionably. Is this studiously observed treatise on the ultimate in childhood embarrassment and ridicule going to be uncomfortable and maybe even a bit of a bummer for you? Probably.

The mother and ostensible villain of the piece is overly caricatured and some of the attitudes of the 1940s are oversimplified but still, I have to admit I was moved by the story. The ending packs power and Landon the writer provides Landon the actor (looking very Bruce Jenner-like in his Olympics clothing) with a wonderful line when Rafer Johnson asks him how he got into running and Landon responds by saying he owes it to his parents. That line cuts in several directions at once. Good movie for fans of Landon or Keith, who both turn in excellent work and whose lives were both ironically cut short years later.