FILM REVIEW: The Swimmer (as it turns out not a review at all rather an extended synopsis, like on Wikipedia only less editing, more purple.)

... while he was far from young he had slid down his banister that morning and given the bronze backside of Aphrodite on the hall table a smack, as he jogged toward the smell of coffee in his dining room. He might have been compared to a summer's day, particularly the last hours of one, and while he lacked a tennis racket or a sail bag the impression was definitely one of youth, sport, and clement weather.

A beautiful description of the protagonist Ned Merril, from John Cheever's 1968 short story, 'The Swimmer'. I recently watched the film adaption of the same year. Burt Lancaster plays the All-American Ned. He is perfection in aging leather skin on a freakishly youthful physique, swimming-pool blue eyes, white teeth. His flirtatious charm, bordering on smut, belies a boyishness that gets him into all sorts of trouble. In a "Go West, Young Man" imperative, Ned is visited by the inspiration to cross, pool-by-pool, his well-heeled New York county, until he reaches home. He sees this task not merely as summer pasttime, but symbolic of an epic homecoming, a geographical forging of what he names "The Lucinda River", after his wife, to whom he will return. The 60's mise-en-scene is charming. Everybody 'had too much to drink last night'. There are ride on mowers (plus 'all the luxury options like a padded seat, a canopy'), a pool filter that filters out 99.99.99 percent of all solid matter, electric toothbrushes, martinis, and pantssuits. Amid talk of golf, perfectly coiffed hair, and great bathers there is absolutely no intention of swimming. The sapphire pools-- beside which punters variously laze, jive, and pour drinks-- remain untouched but for the slicing dive of Ned's rugged form. But really, everyone had much too much to drink... Throughout the surreality of Ned's glorious, Coke-lid popping, ice-tinkling meander from pool-to-pool, the darker side of the coin creeps in. There are references to debt, his long, mysterious absence from town, past mistresses, long abandoned and angry... as the pristine blue day is threatened by storm clouds we are left wondering wherein the truth lies. Will the real Ned Merril please stand up? Where has he been all this time? As we reach his home the clouds burst forth. Limping, bleeding, defeated and shamed, Ned is nigh bestial. With the curtain of civility and merriment pulled back, he is a wild man, an ape. Amid the pouring rain and onset of night, the horrifying truth is revealed.....

TO BE CONTINUED. HAHA!
Do check out the trailer.