The Accidental Tourist

1988 US
Dir: Lawrence Kasdan
Syr: William Hurt, Geena Davis, Kathleen Turner, Bill Pullman

The Accidental Tourist is handling the issues of identity.
Changing one's own behavior is not so easy. Because usual grown-ups have their own behavioral patterns which have been established through their career, and usually they tend to protect this behavioral patterns at any cost. The reason for that is because losing own behavioral patterns might lead them into a serious identity crisis. Even the very subtle custom can, therefore, become the most important thing for a person; for example, altering usual route of going to your office might affect you in relatively deep way. As I will mention later, this trait might even cultivate some sequentially organized ritualistic behavioral patterns. The Accidental Tourist shows this difficulty very clearly, though, since the issue of how a person can change involves the aspects concerning identity, clearly answering this question is not so easy, and, in this regard, the movie also seems to have some ambiguity. Additionally saying, the lead player of this movie William Hurt seems to be the most suitable actor for this kind of roles, for his subdued performance is very effective in this kind of drama movies. In my opinion, there are very few among his movies that actually could be called complete failure, especially as for drama movies. Probably, his character might be best suited for them.
What's the story like?
The movie has William Hurt as a travel writer whose main purpose is to write guide books for business trips. But the concept of his books is based upon rather odd premises such as how you can fend off the interference of the strangers who happen to sit next to you on the airplane. Saying briefly, how you can travel in the same state as being in your home is the leitmotif of his books. So his logo mark is a flying armchair. As the passenger sitting next to William Hurt on the airplane says in a very early scene, feeling as if being in a cocoon or rather in a womb among strangers is the most essential factor for him. As a matter of fact, this is reflecting his character traits. Especially after his son's death for which he is always feeling some guilty due to the obsessive idea he could have somehow prevented it, he seems to have been all the more away from all of the worldly affairs. The dog named Edward is the substitution for his son. Therefore, he can never part with Edward. Probably, for him, losing Edward means losing his son once again, for the memory for his son is firmly attached to this lovely dog. Also, losing his son once again means losing further part of his identity once again, for the meaning of his life seems to have been more or less linked with the existance of this non-existant son. Anyway, his wife (played by Kathleen Turner) can't bear such a situation. So they split up. But, one day, he meets a very strange woman (played by Geena Davis, she got the Oscar (Best Supporting Actress) by playing this odd woman) who is a dog trainer and lives with her fragile son Alexander alone. Inevitably, they begin to meet each other frequently. But, as he is still holding the memory of his son, things can't go straight. Because, it's very difficult for him to accept whatever belongs to the outside world, and she evidently belongs to it from his view point. Anyway, after several events has happened between them, finally he manages to succeed in accepting her.
What kind of family is William Hurt's family? They never pick up a
ringing phone in their house.
As you can see from the outline, he is a very introverted person either by his innate disposition or by his traumatic experience of his son's death or by the combination of both. Also, his family members look very peculiar. None of all the members of his family seems to be second to him in living like xenophobia. His brothers who are over 40 are all single and living with the aid of their sister who also is single and about to become 40. They never pick up the ringing phone, so I wonder why they bothered to set up the phone in their house in the first place. After supper, they usually play a weird trump game. In usual case, it could be considered to be a happy home activity. But, in their case, it looks rather weird, for they are all around or over 40. Overall atmosphere of this weird family can, therefore, be better said with the word "incestuous" in that they are shutting themselves off from all of the influence from the outside world, and sole purpose of their activities is to confirm the family to be always the same as ever so that their identity never crumbles down. The most notable scene well depicting this aspect is where one of William Hurt's brothers calls Geena Davis "Muriel person". Since it's obvious William Hurt's newly acquired girl friend can't be a dog or a cat, calling her "Muriel person" is utterly redundant. The reason why he calls her so is probably because he wants to differentiate her as an outsider from his own family members by deliberately attaching this redundant word "person" to her name in order to secure his identity as an insider. You will be able to find this kind of elaborate but delicate mechanism in this movie here and there if you dare try. For example, sorting the necessities of life alphabetically is one of those, I presume. What kind of family is doing this sort of rituals? Though I'm not going to explicate this, rituals are one way of retaining one's own identity when his identity is at stake. Anyway, by watching these scenes will you certainly be able to feel something is wrong with this family.
Obviously, William Hurt is in a double bind situation. He needs help
from the outside, but he is afraid the outside might bring serious
impact upon his identity.
And, here comes William Hurt. He doesn't seem to be so weird as his brothers do at first glance. He had his wife and his son. Moreover, he is at least writing books for other persons and contributing to the outside society. Nevertheless, as I said before, he too can't be immune from this identity problem, or rather he seems to have been suffering from it more severely. Though he is always taking a trip to write his travel guides for businessmen, he is not actually traveling. Because traveling with himself being cut off from the rest of the world is the same thing as staying at home alone, which is his idea in the first place. In other words, he is completely trapped in a weary groove as he, himself, says in a scene. To get out of this groove which he, himself, has created through his life, he definitely needs help from the outside, for it's very difficult to extricate himself from this predicament only by his own strength due to the fact what he must overcome is also the part of himself. But this outside can't he admit so easily, because accepting the outside means he shall have to give up some part of himself too. This surely constitutes a kind of vicious circle or double bind situation. That is, despite the fact he needs someone to help him badly, as that someone might have the power to destroy what he has been trying to cling to, he can't admit it so easily. Therefore, he can't accept Geena Davis with open arms even if he knows consciously or unconsciously he will need her in order to get out of his dreary life. To tell the truth, I'm not sure why finally he could accept her. Probably, reconfirmation that he can't live with his ex-wife any more (he once staggers back to his ex-wife) might have drived him to plunge into his new self, or he might have clearly noticed he was really in an identity crisis and had to get out of it even if it meant he had to abandon some of whatever he had been considering to be himself. When I said the movie has some ambiguity in the first paragraph, this aspect was on my mind. But, with more careful watching might I be able to find the reason. In that case, I will rewrite some parts of this review.
This movie has also comedy elements despite the fact the movie is
handling a serious issue like identity problem.
From what I've said so far, you might think the movie is an extremely serious drama movie without any comic strip. The former is true; The Accidental Tourist is an extremely serious drama movie insofar as it handles identity problems. But the latter isn't true; the movie has several comic elements too. Actually, on the package of the video tape, the notation "comedy" is printed as a general category (Warner's video tapes have the general category indication on the package to which that particular movie belongs to). Though I think that, should we dare classify the movie in this way, it should be among drama movies, this movie certainly has comedy elements too. For example, the behavior of William Hurt's brothers is very funny as well as weird. And, the dog Edward is very cute and lovely. I guess those who like dogs will like this movie too, in the same way as those who like cats will like the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's too, though I'm not so sure about it, for I don't have any experience of having a dog. Anyway, it's true that, by these scenes, The Accidental Tourist has succeeded in avoiding winding up in becoming just another murky movie handling identity problems. Along with beautiful and clear scenes, this movie is one of good movies rather lightly handling a very serious theme concerning one's identity that could have made the whole movie very ponderous and suffocating one.

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