Customer Reviews

The Seduction of Joe Tynan

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the best political film ever made. Other films distort, simplify or just plain get wrong what federal politics is like at the highest levels. As one who used to work in the White House, I can tell you that this is the only film that understands and reveals what the game is really like.

This is the best film Alan Alda ever made, and Meryl Streep and Rip Torn are both very strong as well. This film MUST be reissued in DVD! Criterion Collection--are you listening? Please!

This overlooked gem may be both Streep and Alda's greatest film. As one to whom politics is both life and life's work, I can counsel you that this is one of the most realistic political films ever, not to mention one of the most enjoyable. See it and be convinced. Also, don't miss Rip Torn--I once worked for a Senator just like the character he plays!

I first saw this film on late night tv in high school. It was the first film I ever saw that effectively conveyed the inner workings of washington politics- How things actually get done.

Its theme- What happens when idealism clashes with personal ambition? - is still relevant in these times. Joe Tynan will remind you of many politicians on the cusp of national prominence.

The film's plot entails a liberal U.S. Senator from New York who sees a political opportunity in leading the opposition to a controversial supreme court nominee. After he succeeds, it then explores the personal consequences of the higher political profile this action has brought.

Alan Alda (who wrote the script- his best- I don't how the same guy wrote "Betsy's Wedding")- gave a very nuanced, three dimensional performance as Joe Tynan. The character is a likeable, idealistic fellow being "seduced" ever so slowly by presidential ambition. How much is he willing to sacrifice for the ultimate prize?

This film should be required viewing for West Wing fans who'd like to see Mr. Alda in another political role.

Meryl Streep is excellent as Joe Tynan's colleague/lover. Look out for a subtle scene with Rip Torn. It is hysterical!

There is no doubt that this is a great movie. It engages its audience and provides them with an experience that will surely stand as a film that will inspire you to pull through the Doldrums of a hard day or if you're going through a difficult time in life, this will give you hope at the other end of the tunnel. It concerns a young liberal senator by the name of Joe Tynan (Alan Alda in his hreatest performance ever besides Hawkeye on M*A*S*H ) who has everything. A beautiful wife (Barbara Harris), children, and happiness. But he has a fling with his attractive female partner (Meryl Streep) and his life is literally going to fall apart. Eventually, his wife finds out and she learns to understand her husband's troubles and I feel, that at the resolution, she forgives him and gives him another chance. But there is fireworks between Joe and another senator friend because he testified against him in a case in which he lead just to earn him some publicity.

This is a movie not just for Alan Alda and Maryl Streep admirers, but for anyone interested in American politics. Early work for both, it is nevertheless very nuanced. The themes seem to be timeless, both in politics and human relations. Thematically, like The Candidate, it's a wake-up call for everyone who may be "seduced" by power, fame and passion...and is this not everyone? As entertainment value, it's engaging, compelling, funny and disturbing, but ultimately hopeful. The mystery of why this hasn't been released in DVD is unexplainable....it's a great film, has timely relevance, and two major stars. What gives?

I THOUGHT THIS WAS AN EXCELLENT PORTRAYAL OF POLITICS IN THE USA. ALAN ALDA WAS EXCELLENT AS ALWAYS BUT BARBARA HARRIS'S PERFORMANCE WAS TRULY
MAGNIFICENT. IF YOU LIKE MOVIES ABOUT POLITICS THIS WILL SUIT YOUR
FANCY.

One of Alan's first films after his appearance on MASH. He plays a US senator who lusts for Meryl Streep's character, a lobbyist from Louisiana. Meryl carries Alan in this film and you can tell Alda is learning to act for the big screen. In all it is a delightful film with a great supporting cast. (Barbara Harris)

The poster - reproduced on the VHS boxcover - for this 1979 political/romance drama is pretty interesting, with the faces of the three principals in a row, the central one unsmiling, and the words "There are many ways to be seduced. Fame. Power. Love. Joe Tynan knows them all."

It's kind of an interesting image, and certainly an evocative tagline, for what turns out unfortunately to be a problematic and only intermittently successful film. The ingredients are fine and surely must have boded well at the time: star/writer Alan Alda was still in the midst of his success on M*A*S*H and had starred in two of the bigger commercial and critical successes of the previous year, CALIFORNIA SUITE and SAME TIME, NEXT YEAR; costar Barbara Harris was a Tony winner, multiple Golden Globe nominee and Oscar nominee; Melvyn Douglas had won an Oscar and been nominated for another and was to win a second Oscar for BEING THERE in 1979, the same year this film was released; Rip Torn was making a name as a prominent character actor and eccentric lead; and then there was a young actress named Meryl Streep, who won her first Oscar in 1979 also. The director was Jerry Schatzberg, winner of the Palme d'or at Cannes in 1973 for SCARECROW and widely known for the gritty junkie drama PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK which had helped make Al Pacino a star. The music was by Bill Conti, Oscar nominee a couple of years earlier for the memorable theme song "Gonna Fly Now" from ROCKY.

But it doesn't all add up, alas, despite fine work from the principal actors, especially Harris as Ellie, the beleaguered wife of up-and-coming Senator Joe Tynan (Alda), who is seduced at first simply by the prospect of winning an important battle over a Supreme Court nomination and eventually also by an aide in that battle, southern lawyer Karen Traynor (Streep) and ultimately the prospect of running for President. It's an old story, or stories: man corrupted by power and arrogance, and man having to choose power and career over love and family, and alas Alda's screenplay hits all the major keys without really getting the minor notes that would provide more feeling and richness to the story. Alda is fine as the would-be Kennedy-type also, and Streep added to her already-impressive resume with a light southern accent and a lot of humor and panache in the flashiest and most-admired role in the film, but as I said for me Harris is the one who really shines, walking a difficult path between appearing too "shrewish" and controlling and just being the concerned wife. It would have been fairly easy to make Ellie seem out of control and allow her to be sympathetic in all the wrong ways but Harris never goes down that path, and in the end she is probably the most ambivalent and hard-to-read character in the film - which I think is entirely appropriate in a story about facades and pretense.

Schatzerg's direction doesn't help matters any; the film's subject may not call for a stylistic genius but a lot of scenes here just come off very flat, in particular a would-be comic interlude with Alda and Streep trying to find a quiet getaway at a country club. There's also a narrative choice that I think doesn't really work given the very straightforward story - and the fact that we know most of our characters are lying to themselves and each other most of the time. The way Ellie finds out about the affair is really elided and seems to rely on just her noticing a couple of glances and hand signals here or there from a distance - there's never a discussion of anything, she just blows up and it comes off as highly unrealistic; unless we're supposed to assume that she's just more intuitive than most because she's a psychologist. Much of the rest of the film suffers from this same kind of lazy storytelling; the stress in the family is just assumed because we know that daddy's a Senator, but it's not well articulated, and it doesn't help matters that Blanche Baker as the Tynans' daughter Janet is very unconvincing, seeming to change ages between about 12 and 18 from scene to scene.

The music by Conti is awfully strange as well; it's a neat little theme, but it sounds closer to Renaissance fayre or English folk revival than the music for a serious political film. I can't recall when outside of certain exploitation films I've heard a more inappropriate score. All in all then, THE SEDUCTION OF JOE TYNAN is rather a mess that does justice neither to the political or relationship dimensions of the story. It's saved from hopelessness by the terrific performance by Harris and the very good ones by Streep, Alda, Douglas and Torn (who has a couple of great little "character" scenes that seem written just for him), but still I'm not sure how strongly I'd recommend it to people in general if the cast doesn't interest them.

For all of my problems with the film, it certainly does deserve to be on DVD, as Meryl Streep's performance is certainly an important one in her career's trajectory, and who knows? A nicely transferred widescreen presentation, with commentary by any or all of the three principals and the director would be something that even some viewers like me who are ambivalent about the film might be willing to take a gander at.

If you're into politics, you might enjoy this film. Supposedly, its a very realistic view of the U.S. Senate and as such, it'll be interesting for those of us who consider Allen Drury to be light reading. As a film, though, its somewhat draggy and very much a product of the late, self-righteous 1970s. Alan Alda is a young Senator named Joe Tynan, an ambitious liberal who has an affair with Meryl Streep that leads to his perfect world starting to collapse around him. There's not really much of a plot to the film -- its mostly a collection of scenes of Tynan campaigning, cheating, and legislating. Some films work without a clearly defined plot but this film just seems to be sort of a mess. Alan Alda was brave to play a character who is, occasionally, rather unsympathetic but at the same time, Tynan still carries a lot of the smug, self-righteousness that Alda brought to the final seasons of M*A*S*H so if you disliked Alda on that show, this movie probably isn't for you. That said, this film also contains one of Meryl Streep's few truly genuine, human performances (she doesn't fall back on the obvious "actorly" technique that's marred recent performances) and she's actually quite sexy in a role that I'm sure screenwriter Alda thought would come across as "liberated" but actually smacks of a certain unacknowledged sexism (for she may be a smart, accomplished, independent activist but she's still basically there to have sex with and sing the praises of Joe Tynan). Two of Alda's fellow Senators are played brilliantly by Melvyn Douglas and Rip Torn (who at times seemes to be playing Pennsylvania's own Snarlin' Arlen Specter though the film actually predates Specter's election). Highly praised at the time, the film is mostly forgotten today but it has its occasional moments.

This is a boring type-cast story that leaves you feeling like "so, why did I have to watch that ?" Depressing, with no entertainment value, not to mention it's very dated. When Alan Alda was a movie star, the world was a much different place than it is now. Maybe, that's why the movie doesn't ring true. Anyway, I don't recommend it.