Accidental tourist

The Accidental Tourist was a critical and popular success in 1988 for William Hurt and Geena Davis (who won the year's Oscar for Best Supporting Actress). It also gained many award nominations for its original score (John Williams) and direction and co-writing by Lawrence Kasdan, whose screenplay was based on an Anne Tyler novel. The nominal lead actress was Kathleen Turner.

Kasdan had already written and directed Body Heat (his 1981 debut, also starring Hurt and Turner), The Big Chill and Silverado, and co-written the second and third Star Wars instalments (1980/83) and Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). He made another six movies up to 2003, when he co-produced and directed his re-working of William Goldman's adaptation of Stephen King's Dreamcatcher. It lost him big money; since then he's reportedly been attached to Tobey McGuire's aborted live-action Robotech and is now completing a delayed project co-written with his wife (and co-writer of his Grand Canyon) about a woman who loves her dog more than her husband (Darling Companion, starring old hands Kevin Kline, Diane Keaton and Dianne West).

Anne Tyler's novel told of an uptight weak-willed travel writer (Hurt), separated from his bossy uptight wife (Turner) a year after the shooting death of their 12-year-old son, hiring a self-determinedly odd trainer (Davis) for the boy's biting Corgi. Dogs never hurt a film's audience appeal and are photogenic dei ex machina for its plotting; this one is a star turn.

An admirable supporting cast flesh out Hurt's three eccentric siblings and his bachelor publisher (Bill Pullman), and the richly comic details of their lives build a firm frame for Hurt's character's melancholy indecisiveness. Their dialogue is wry and charming, like much of the movie. Overall, though, at two hours it's an over-long reflection on love and marriage, insecure men and purposeful women. There are longueurs and the trio of key characters are self-centred folks with whom one wouldn't want to share one's life.