Having started life as a play, Philip Seymour Hoffman’s directorial debut retains much of its stagey flavour. But it also proves that Hoffman’s flair for the bittersweet – evident in several of his previous roles – is not confined to his acting. With Jack Goes Boating, Hoffman has demonstrated his considerable worth as a talented and thoughtful director.
As well as directing Hoffman also plays the title role: a New York limo driver with a passion for reggae (which explains the half-hearted cornrows) and an ambition to work for the MTA. His co-worker Clyde (John Ortiz) arranges, along with wife Lucy (Daphne Rubin-Vega), for Jack to be set up with neurotic funeral worker Connie (Amy Ryan). Their shy, tentative relationship quickly falls into contrast with the fast-crumbling marriage of Clyde and Lucy.
It’s a dialogue-heavy four-hander, and as such there’s no mistaking its theatrical origins. Occasionally the long stares, heavy breathing and awkward silences make it all feel a little bit self-conscious; but in general the screenplay, adapted by Bob Glaudini, works well in this context.
Much of this is down to the incredible performances. Each actor conveys, with impressive subtlety, the pain and unhappiness of their own character. Ryan spectacularly embodies Connie’s constant, brittle nervousness, while Hoffman is convincingly appealing as the likeable and shy hero of the piece. But it’s Ortiz and Rubin-Vegan who steal the show, working particularly hard in their portrayal of a marriage gone badly – and in many ways inexplicably – wrong.
There are some wonderful comic moments here, but it is not primarily a funny film. It’s a touching, raw story about all kinds of relationships that rests heavily on the actors’ various chemistries with each other. And of all the twosomes that you see in Jack Goes Boating, it’s the love between Jack and Clyde which probably emerges as the most earnest. The scenes of Clyde teaching Jack to swim are among the most intimate and heart-warming in the whole film.
Hoffman, already an accomplished stage director, brings a quiet but assured confidence to his debut. It probably helps that there is some familiarity with the piece: he and Ortiz, as artistic co-directors of the LAByrinth Theater Company, first brought Jack Goes Boating to life in 2007 (all the original cast, except for Connie, remain intact). After watching the film one can hardly blame Hoffman for sticking to the project for so long: this is an affecting, profoundly moving tale which is impossible to forget, and a sterling turn in Hoffman’s already-impeccable movie career.
Jack Goes Boating is in cinemas 4 November 2011.
Director: Philip Seymour Hoffman
Stars: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Ryan, John Ortiz, Daphne Rubin-Vega
Runtime: 89 minutes
Country: US
Film Rating: 
