It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

so I had seen this on television not too long ago over the Christmas season of 2016. When it had come out, I was only about 11 yrs. old I guess so it wouldn't have piqued my interest...I totally liked it...it was very sad and kind of interesting. One of the first long films I remember watching by myself starred Ralph fiennes or his brother, and it was about a fighter pilot that crashed and slowly died along a cavern in like Afghanistan or something...and I think it starred cate blanchette... so here we see Gina davis be as annoying as ever on screen. And William hurt is a writer who has ed Begley junior as his brother and bill Pullman as his publishor or editor that is kind of flirting with the possibility of getting together with ed Begley juniors wife. ordinary brother interaction involving William hurt and ed Begley Jr. kind of make this film more sad as they endure life in their early fifties I suppose? so Gina davis ends up training a dog almost voluntarily for William hurt where you notice on occasion she asks for only five dollars for services.

For a good deal of its running time, "The Accidental Tourist" deals with wandering through life after a couple suffers the worst kind of loss. So that morose feeling is understandable, but mostly this movie is thoroughly depressing. The healing power of human compassion finally arrives in the form of Geena Davis, but she just gets jerked around, and all I really wanted to do was punch William Hurt in the face. I know this is about people being out of sync with their emotions, but there's only so much slack you can offer.I tend to like Kasdan movies for the most part, but I wasn't expecting a movie with such stiffness and awful characterization.4/10

I decided to watch this film again after many years, and it impressed me more now than it did when it came out. It is a very sensitive film based upon a novel published in 1985 (of the same title) by the well-known American novelist Anne Tyler (born 1941), a denizen of Baltimore. The characters of this novel are also from Baltimore, which some regard as the Centre of the Earth, by which I refer primarily to those innocents who have not seen THE WIRE (2002, see my review). William Hurt gives one of his brilliant performances (which seem to come so naturally to him) as Macon Leary, an up-tight and hopelessly stuffy author of travel guides for Americans who do not like to leave America and wish to travel in their bubble, thus protecting themselves from all contaminating influences such as foreigners or even people from another city such as Philadelphia. But to give an idea of how hopeless an isolationist Leary is, we see him eating disgusting hamburgers at a Burger King in Paris, which he will in turn recommend to his readers. Leary will guide timorous Americans to Burger Kings and other such horrible places wherever they are in the world, so that they need never eat anything strange. In a voice-over in this film, he says of French restaurants and their menus of the day: 'Avoid Prix Fixe. It forces you to eat all those courses you don't want.' One presumes that Tyler is being gently satirical in inventing this character (let us hope he never really existed and is a caricature). Leary's series of books are called 'The Accidental Tourist', hence the title of the film. And as for Leary himself, he is an accidental tourist of Life. Meanwhile, Leary's accidentally toured life has been devastated by the death of his only son, and he has been savaged by grief. His wife, played by Kathleen Turner, leaves him at the beginning of the story to live in a separate flat and go her own way, as she says he has not yet come to terms with his grief and she can no longer live with him. Thus, he lives alone in his house with the most charming actor in the film, a dog called Bud, who plays the dog in the film. I would greatly like to have Bud come and live with me! However, as the film was made 26 years ago, perhaps he is no longer about. I like all dog films, and this to a larger extent than one might imagine is a dog film. It is Bud's lack of good behaviour which brings Leary into contact with the charmingly eccentric character Muriel (whom Leary later describes as 'that odd girl'), who is a dog trainer, and who becomes his romantic muse and saviour. This character is played by the wonderfully odd actress Geena Davis, one of my favourites. The film she made just before this one, in the same year, was EARTH GIRLS ARE EASY (1988, see my review), which I think of as one of the funniest films ever made, and Davis's central performance in it made it work. Never having met Davis, I can only presume that in order to play these wacky and offbeat characters to such perfection, she must be pretty odd herself. However, she rid herself of these anomalies when she played the President of the United States in the excellent TV series COMMANDER IN CHIEF (2005), in which her performance was, well, 'commanding', and it won her a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a TV drama. It is a great pity that the rather weird and wonderful Geena Davis has not made many more films than she has, but she won a well deserved Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST, which shows that she has been appreciated by her peers (as do her countless other awards). She also resembles the goddess Diana (aka Artemis) in that she is an archery champion, and having been married four times, she clearly takes good aim at the heart. If she were ever to 'come up to see me sometime', I could show her my long bow which my grandfather lovingly carved out of lemonwood from South America because he said it had the best qualities (his idea being that he would be making the Stradivarius of long bows). No mere yew for him! Long bows are so much more romantic than etchings. Another excellent actress who appears in this film is Amy Wright, who does a brilliant job of portraying Leary's eccentric sister Rose. The film is essentially a study of people who 'don't fit'. Sometimes they don't fit in a good way and sometimes they don't fit in a bad way. So Tyler seems to be excavating the American psyche to find divergences from the norm, which is an important thing to do in a country where 'normality' ranks second only the 'the dollar' theologically speaking. This film was directed by the highly talented Lawrence Kasdan, who knows a good nuance when he sees one. And in this film we see plenty of them.

This is a remarkably good film, with a strong woman's role (Muriel) for Geena Davis, an excellent actress. William Hurt plays a travel writer (Macon) who hates to travel. His son was killed in a traffic accident, and the stress has led his character to separate from his wife (Sarah, played by Kathleen Turner). He returns to his family home, where his brothers and sister live, and you meet a stunningly civil, stunningly dysfunctional family. Muriel is very off the wall and just the relief Macon needs. Their growth toward each other, and Macon's recovery from the grief of his loss is subtly and well done.The contrast between Davis's character and the one played by Helen Hunt in "As Good as It Gets" merits thoughtful consideration. In this film, Muriel won't settle for Macon as he is when they meet. Muriel is a competent adult, not a needy woman. If Macon grows and meets her halfway, fine. If not, that's fine, too -- Muriel won't accept the emotionally crippled Macon. There are very few roles where women are written as strong, competent actors instead of passive accepters. ("Silence of the Lambs" comes to mind as another such movie, both for Clarice Starling and for Catherine Martin, the victim that traps Buffalo Bill's dog and uses it as a bargaining chip.)