Customer Reviews

Seize the Day

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

 

 

Willy is pitiful! A middle-age man and he still can't get his act together. Earlier in his life he rebels against his parents wishes and attempts to make his own way but can never seem to get it together. His life is what....?

Robin Williams gives us an excellent portrait of a man who rebels for the right reasons but is missing that mysterious "something" which can give his life meaning. Attempting to fill the void in his life is the challenge he faces throughout the film. You feel sorry and at the same time find yourself disgusted with the character who never seems to grows up.

Saul Bellow's work has been easily adapted to the screen with fine actors who will keep you going. His commentary about life, the myth of hard work and fulfilling dreams make you question your own life. Is it worth being in the rat race? Watch this movie and you will see.

This film is one of Robin Williams' best performances. Perfect as Saul Bellow's protagonist, Williams plays Wilky Adler, a man approaching an inevitable mid-life crisis. Wilky is pathetic and pitiable, an everyman who could never get his life in order. Devoid of redemption, this film is familiar and painful, with stellar acting from Williams, Joseph Wiseman (Dr. Adler), and Jerry Stiller (Dr. Tamkin).

I know it sounds sacreligious, but I've never thought Robin Williams was funny and the harder he tries to be funny the more unfunny I find him. I was really impressed therefore, the first time I saw him in a dramatic performance a few years ago and it was Seize the Day. I had no idea that he had such talent. He communicates everything that there is to be felt in the story by the strength of his performance.

Very faithful adaptation of Saul Bellow's novel, with Robin Williams in the lead role as Tommy Wilhelm, a 40-year-old man down and out on his luck and howling at the world because of it. Williams lets out all the stops and creates a harrowing and harried character who loses all hope. A powerful picture.

The acting is great. The story, by Saul Bellow, is not for one suffering
from depression. It is heavy! Good movie/book for a discussion group.
The vocal quality is poor. Very worthwhile.

Barbara Hacker Berman

An interesting film adapted from Saul Bellow, the famous Nobel Prize winner. Here the character, a middle-age Jewish man, is accumulating all kinds of difficulties: he is fired, he is separated from his wife who hassles him for money, he is rejected financially and emotionally by his own father, he is fooled by a fake finance wizard who practically robs him of his money, and I should say etc and so on. The character is perfectly hysterical in an absolutely paranoid direction and we can see him going down little by little and it all ends up on a total dead end blind alley impasse. In other words a perfect loser in the Jewish culture who ends up crying on his own fate in the funeral of some other guy he does not know at all among people who don't know him nor he them. That is pure Saul Bellow who dedicated his whole writing career to such losers and total misfits in the world of making money not only to survive, not even to live, but to exist. In other words he is self immolating himself at the social stake of financial failure. Brilliant.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine & University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne

"DEAD POET SOCIETY" I like this movie, because I was moved by it. Perhaps, this movie tells us that you don't have to obey your parents and try to be honest to yourself and live anything you like!! In this film, all children obey their parents. The school the children go to is very strict. One day a teacher named Mr.Keating came to school. Mr Keating is a free-thinker. Because of his appearence,children's thinking is changing day by day. In this film, my favorite charactor is Mr Keating,because he always smiling and I like his way of thinking. The most impressive scene for me is when Mr.Keating leaves the school and students stand up on their desks and say, "Oh, Chaptain my chaptain" I couldn't control myself and moved into tears.

At last, I think this film is worth seeing very much , please rent this film and watch it!!