Rabbit, Run

After I read Rabbit Run and Rabbit Redux, I wanted to see how many Updike novels had been made into movies. His writing does not seem cinematic. I was surprised to find that, in addition to The Witches of Eastwick, Rabbit Run had, in fact, been made into a movie. And starring one of the leading actors of the late 60's, early 70s, James Caan, as well as Carrie Snodgrass, best known for Diary of a Mad Housewife. Also, in a major role, Jack Albertson, later renowned for Chico and the Man.

Rabbit Run, the movie, is unfairly neglected. The central role of Harry Angstrom is fully realized by James Caan as a guy you sympathize with and despise. The events of Harry's life are played out to suitably tacky late-60's pop music, and filmed in John Updike's hometown of Reading, Pa. Reading looks even sadder than Updike described it, but the gritty streets work well for the story. They are unpleasant and dangerous and claustrophobic, and if you were to live there, in this small industrial city walled in by high hills, you might feel like you're trapped, like Rabbit was.

James Caan was somewhat unique among actors of that time: I think of Dustin Hoffman and Elliot Gould as being the icons of the era, the not-really-handsome lovable Jewish schmos. James Caan is a Jewish schmo, but he's also a hunk, with broad shoulders and a big chest and a seductive face. He's conventionally sexy, and women fall for him easily, but he still is an outsider, he's got issues, lots of issues, just like Dustin and Elliot. A super-schmo.

There was one scene in the book, which I will NOT reveal here, that was harrowing and an amazing display of the author's power with his pen. That scene translates frighteningly to the screen, although I thought the filmmakers could have gone much further in depicting the horror. If ever a remake is made, THAT scene should be full-out Grand-Guignol.

It's a satisfying flick, and it makes you long for the sequel that was never made. I read elsewhere that this film never even opened in New York, the studio thought so little of it. If the éminences grises of the Film Forum or Anthology Film Archives or Film Society of Lincoln Center are reading this, please consider reviving this film, and giving it a proper New York opening.

James Caan sells artificial stone facing for homes. His is married to Carrie Snodgrass with a son and a daughter on the way. Miss Snodgrass sends him out for cigarettes, and he moves in with Anjanette Comer.

It's half a century since I read the John Updike novel this was based on and found it a dull affair. To that extent, this is a good film version, because I found it dull. The characters are uninteresting, none of them very good at what they do. That is, I suppose the point of the novel. It came out in the 1960s, the post-war exuberance was fading, and Updike made a mantra of excoriating failure to the general applause of his colleagues on The New Yorker. Updike's pursed-mouth disapproval satisfied the literary lions and critics of the day, at least until he came out in favor of the Viet Nam War.

The year 1970 gave us James Caan in "Rabbit Run" and Michael Douglas in "Adam at Six A. M.". Films with such remarkably similar themes that you have to wonder what the typical young man was thinking during those years and whether it was unique to the times.

Both films center on their title character, Harry 'Rabbit' Angstrom and "Adam" Gaines, who if they aspire to anything aspire to seeing the world in their respective rear view mirrors. Basically making a case for not getting trapped by an easily defined life. While Adam is ambitious and more cerebral about the whole thing, Rabbit just lets life take him in any random direction and then dodges any responsibility or consequence that might complicate his life. There is a lot of Kerouac's Dean Moriarty character in Rabbit, at least with regards to living in the moment and showing little remorse for any wreckage he leaves behind.

"Dean features prominently as a hero. An incredibly flawed hero who tends to abandon those who love him and feel no remorse whatsoever at his poor judgment and horribly timed actions. But a hero nonetheless".

Where Adam anticipates situations and avoids getting trapped in the first place, Rabbit is too wrapped up in himself and his immediate gratification to avoid getting trapped. Adam might fall for a manic pixie dream girl if one came into his life who meshed well with his ambitions. But no manic pixie dream girl would want Rabbit and the more dimensional and imperfect women he meets and recklessly commits to end up simply cramping his style.

Carrie Snodgrass and Anjanette Comer play his main love interests. Both give excellent performances as women tortured by their association with Rabbit. He can't give them what they need in these unequal relationships and neither seems equipped to successfully deal with life on their own. This lack of independence is off-putting to many female viewers who blame author John Updike - who wrote the 1960 novel on which the film is based - for creating such shallow female characters. This is a fair criticism as far as it goes but such people do exist and a story is not necessarily sexist just because its focus is a certain female or human type.

I think this is Comer's best performance. Her typical character is weird in a restrained way and not especially accessible or relatable to a male viewer. But Ruth Leonard is quite likable and earthy, a very regular person. She is Updike's counterpoint to Janice Angstrom (Underwood). Updike is saying that Rabbit is almost sympathetic in his aversion to his wife and his horrible marriage, a put upon hero with somewhat understandable flaws. But his advance and retreat behavior with Ruth is simply inexcusable.

Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom (James Caan) and his pregnant wife Janice Angstrom (Carrie Snodgress) fight constantly. Life has not turned out well for the former high school basketball star. He reconnects with his strange struggling coach Marty Tothero (Jack Albertson). Marty and him go on a double date and he's introduced to Ruth Leonard (Anjanette Comer).

This is based on a John Updike novel. It's hard to get inside the character. The script is too loose. I don't know why he undresses and sleeps in front of his former coach. Does that indicate some sort of abusive relationship? I don't know. The movie doesn't expand on it. It's a very 70's movie where the character is aimlessly searching for something he doesn't know. It's a muddle. The filmmaking is weak. Updike was writing against the backdrop of 50's white Protestant middle America. The movie should play that up. This still has Jimmy Caan and that could save it. He did this instead of MASH. This guy is wandering in the wilderness of his life and it's not compelling.

Some films pass the test of time. Others feel incredibly stale, dated, and stultifying. This film, I would wager, felt stale as soon as it hit the theatres. James Caan's and most of the other actors' acting is stiff, forced, and one dimensional, and the screen adaptation of a worthwhile book also is awkward and artificial, in the way that films that don't pass the test of time are.

As another reviewer remarked, the film was made 10 years too late--the mores and morals of the year 1960 had already completely shifted by 1970, so the film doesn't even make sense, and the film making and directorial style feel unpleasantly anachronistic.