The Second Coming of Suzanne

Woefully 'ambitious' low-budget sludge concerns a filmmaker and his hippie troupe involved in the production of a new-fangled religious saga, with a woman cast as Christ. Independently-financed drama, a would-be dream-like parable (apparently inspired by Leonard Cohen's song "Suzanne"), is so meager in budget--and so sloppy in execution--that the results are nearly unintelligible. After a promising start in films, Sondra Locke lost her way as an actress before Clint Eastwood rescued her career; this is the worst movie she ever appeared in (ditto Richard Dreyfuss, looking embarrassed in the small role of a production associate). Writer-director Michael Barry openly apes Bergman and Antonioni, but he either needed more finance to expand on his (ahem) poetic leanings to bring this picture off or he simply had to be told "No!" The finale, wrong-headed and ridiculously bizarre, strains for "meaning", while the threadbare budget hampers any chance the actors have of sustaining interest. NO STARS from ****

This movie is hardly ever brought up, but when it is I feel the need to fervently defend it. But that is not an easy thing to do when faced with the reality of quality of the film. I have no problems with slow films, in fact I love films that are delibrately difficult and slow paced, I consider it athlectic movie-going to watch things like Syberberg's "Hitler", or things like "Out 1" "Berlin Alexanderplatz", or movies of conventional length but maddingly slow like "The Disappearance" or the films of Bresson or Terrance Malick. This film is slow, and I can't take any points off for that, but at times it does feel like there is no purpose to the pacing. The most used word to describe the film is pretentious. There is not doubt the film "flirts" with pretension, but I feel there is validity to the idea, the plot and the story, but I can understand why people might be turned off by it. It is frivolous in its poetics, and if you are a person concerned with the immediate or the political, you'll probably hate this movie, but if you like loose or experimental narrative and ambiguity of motive this film will appeal to you. Two things the film has going for it is one; the acting. It's uniformly strong, and Richard Dreyfuss is in it more than most people will tell you, but he isn't the start as the box art would lead you to believe. And two; the use of music. Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne" is use to great effect in the film, and in a way that is the truest visual representation of the meaning of that song. But above all the greatest thing about the film is the concept it plays with. A man obsessed about making a film about the second coming of Jesus, but as a woman. it is fascinating to watch this unfold, but I do have to adimit the pay off is disappointing. In the hands of someone like Nicholas Roeg, Bunuel, Bresson, or Malick this might have been one of the greatest films of all time. As it is now it's an interesting film, and an infuriating viewing because your left wondering what could have been.

As a fan of obscure movies I found out about this little oddity and got a copy of it on DVD. I've always liked Sondra Locke and Richard Dreyfuss is OK in my book so I figure what the heck lets check it out.Man this film is a trip back in time for sure.All the surealness and hipness was very representative of the late 60's/early 70's era.As stated by another reviewer here it's story is incoherent and never does come together but you keep watching to see what happens in the end.It's bizarre but entertaining to a point.Dreyfuss was very young in this movie.Sondra Locke never looked better in any other movie I've seen her in.Maybe it was because she was being cast as a female Jesus but she does look divine as Suzanne.Handled by better filmmakers this could've been a really good film.As it is it's a good little novelty to see and reflect on how movie making has changed in the last 30+ years.A side note future director Penelope Spheeris is one of Logan's female disciples wearing mime style face paint.

Richard Dreyfuss is, indeed, in this flick, but in a rather small part. He is NOT the "obsessed" filmmaker - he's the group's business manager/accountant. Even the box describes the film inaccurately. There are no erotic scenes with Sondra Locke, as advertised, unless one uses the term "erotic" quite loosely. I would not have considered viewing the film without Richard Dreyfuss being in it as a major character. I might have, however, had I realized that the famous 60's anthem, Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne," was an artistic influence. Other than the brief recitation of lines from the end of James Joyce's "Ulysses", and an interesting visual reference to the end of Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal," I found it a poor attempt to meld symbolic elements and moods immortalized in films like "Last Year at Marianbad" and "Un Chien Andalou." If you like the idea of the eccentric artistic troupe, there are many superior films, ranging from "Bye, Bye, Brasil" to "Cecil B. Demented."

I didn't even want to watch this movie after reading Maltin's review and 1 1/2 star rating. I watched it anyway on the advice of my son and found it much better than I expected. I would give it 2 1/2 stars out of a 4 star system. You have to watch the movie more than once to understand it all. If you don't know much about religion, you will miss a lot. I graduated from high school the year the movie was made, so maybe I can relate to it better. Yes, there is some pretension in the movie and it's weird to some extent, but that was the 70s so what do you expect. I can see why people might not like the movie; however, I cannot understand people saying it is boring. The movie is anything but boring. You will either hate it or love it. If you find it boring, you are probably brain dead.