Losing a child is perhaps one of the most difficult things a person can endure in life. We should never live to see the day we have to bury one of our kids; it’s not the way things should be. When that death comes to a young child, especially an only child, it can derail a person’s life, their marriage, and their sense of purpose. After all, when you set out to build a family, a large part of your identity is that family, and when part of that is taken away from you, it leaves you spinning, trying to rediscover your direction.
That is where Macon Leary (William Hurt) is at the beginning of The Accidental Tourist. Macon’s job describes his life to a tee; he is a writer of travel guides that detail how to best avoid unpleasantness and difficulty when on the road. But in his personal life, he has been unable to avoid a major difficulty, the loss of his 12-year-old son, Ethan, in a senseless act of violence during a robbery at a fast-food restaurant. Macon has fallen back on his guides, entitled The Accidental Tourist, to try and keep control of himself, his grief, and his life, but it has caused him to become emotionally distant from his wife, Sarah (Kathleen Turner), creating a marriage that is growing increasingly dysfunctional. Eventually, she leaves him, moving out of the house and leaving him alone with the family dog, Edward.
As part of his work, Macon has to travel all over the world, writing about his experiences and how to navigate the various airports, hotels, and restaurant scenes with the bare minimum of fuss. Without Sarah back home, he has to board Edward for these trips. This brings him into contact with Muriel Pritchett (Geena Davis), a somewhat eccentric animal hospital employee and amateur dog trainer who happens to be a divorcee with a sickly son, Alexander, back home. Upon his return, Muriel tries to convince Macon to engage in her training services as Edward is prone to disobedience and even biting. He dismisses this offer until the dog’s disobedience causes him to fall down the stairs at home and break his leg.
During these training sessions, Muriel is quite forward with her interest in Macon, as well as what he considers to be a lack of sophistication, but he soon comes to enjoy her company and finds himself opening up to her, even trusting her. Eventually, he moves in to her apartment and becomes a bit of a father figure to her son. But even though his divorce is soon to be finalized, he doesn’t show any interest in marriage again, and Muriel fears to get her son’s hopes up only to have them dashed. These fears seem to be confirmed when Sarah calls Macon up, wanting to reconcile and move back into their home.
Life is a messy business. We think we can control it, but often things come along to derail it and force us to adapt. “Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans”. You marry, have a kid, and you think things will continue along that line until you reach a certain age, retire, have grandchildren, watch them grow up, rinse and repeat until your life inevitably reaches its natural end. But that is often just an ideal, and so many things can come along to put an end to that ideal. When those things happen, all you can really do is roll with the punches and try to pick the pieces back up. Or, as Macon does, you can try to insulate yourself from the pain and retreat into yourself until you lose what’s most important in life: the person you chose to navigate it with.
In the case of Macon and Sarah, though, this tragedy has revealed something that may or may not have always been there in the first place. I quoted John Lennon a minute ago, and I’ll quote another singer/songwriter here, Suzanne Vega: “It’s not enough to be in love”. You can tell that he loves his wife, but he is afraid of the pain, compartmentalizing it like it is just another inconvenience referenced in one of his little books. We are not privy to how their marriage was before the tragedy, only how it is in the wake of their son’s death. By electing not to show their marriage prior to this, we can only speculate that perhaps things were on autopilot a bit to begin with, and it was exacerbated by the death. Maybe that isn’t the case, but his emotional distance has stretched this marriage to the breaking point in the wake of that death.
Muriel is a very different type of woman. She is open and vibrant, a little quirky but not annoyingly so. She is also dealing with her own bit of tragedy. Her son was born prematurely, having to be removed significantly early to save his life, and the surgery left her barren. Her son, Alexander, is also sickly, allergic to virtually everything. She’s very protective of him, especially his emotional well-being, which leads to some hard conversations about expectations once things between her and Macon get more serious. Macon, though, is still trying to treat life like one of his travelogues, avoiding anything like getting remarried that might make that journey through life less convenient. But he is missing the whole point of traveling through life. Life is not something to simply be endured. It is there to be enjoyed, too. Life is not like an unwanted business trip. This is a lesson he is going to have to learn again before the story is through.
It can be hard watching a protagonist who is so closed off from life that there is just no joy there whatsoever. Perhaps that is why William Hurt works so well in this role. Like Kevin Costner, he has a way of acting that can be seen as wooden and stiff, yet it works in roles such as this. It also puts him in stark contrast with Geena Davis, who is bringing a level of energy to this film that straddles the line into eccentricity early on but is her own way of masking her personal struggles. She is awkward, yet confident. Life has thrown her a few curve balls too, but her way of reacting to them is much different than his. Their interactions, especially after Macon is introduced to Alexander, lifts him out of the self-pity doldrums from the beginning of the film and turns things around for him.
Which is why when Sarah comes back into the picture all of a sudden, asking to move back into the house and try to work things out between them, we are intentionally feeling frustrated, knowing this is the wrong choice but also understanding it. This is the woman he initially fell in love with and they have a long history together. They were married for over a decade after all, and having this offer come in out of the blue would be conflicting. It’s also devastating for Muriel because she has opened up herself to this man, fearing that things wouldn’t be permanent but stealing herself for this very possibility. She sees a man who doesn’t have a sense of direction anymore and had hoped to provide that for him.
Geena Davis has never been better on screen. In the early scenes, as Muriel is just meeting and getting to know Macon, it is played a bit broadly. But later, the more we get to know her, we see that this is a nervous reaction she has when meeting a man that she finds attractive. After things settle down a bit, we start getting more to the heart of this character, and that is where Geena Davis really shines. There is so much vulnerability to this character, but you don’t see that at first; she shrouds it in her quirkiness and confidence, but secretly she is afraid. That doesn’t stop her from going after what she wants, even after he chooses to go back to Sarah.
This leads to the finale. We know where this is headed; it’s an old Hollywood formula, yet it still manages to surprise us a bit. The ending is also a bit open-ended while still providing us with the dopamine rush we get from a good romantic ending. This is simply a wonderful wrap-up to a film that is far more deep than the synopsis would lead you to believe. It is a romantic comedy/drama, but there is so much more to this than just that alone. It is an examination of pain and sorrow, but it is also an affirmation on life and finding joy again, something that so many going through the loss of a loved one often feel can never happen again. The ending is fitting to that, too, not quite giving us a happily ever after but a promise to make another attempt at it.
Academy Award Nominations:
Best Picture: Lawrence Kasdan, Charles Okun, and Michael Grillo
Best Supporting Actress: Geena Davis (won)
Best Screenplay - Based on Material from Another Medium: Frank Galati and Lawrence Kasdan
Best Original Score: John Williams
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Release Date: December 23, 1988
Running Time: 121 minutes
Rated PG
Starring: William Hurt, Kathleen Turner, and Geena Davis
Directed by: Lawrence Kasdan
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