Being There
Directed by Hal Ashby
- comedy
- drama
The story
A simple-minded gardener named Chance has spent all his life in the Washington D.C. house of an old man. When the man dies, Chance is put out on the street with no knowledge of the world except what he has learned from television.
What it’s like
Soft, measured daylight through lace curtains and tall bay windows, with the camera holding back in long, composed frames that let rooms and faces settle before anything moves. The palette is muted and warm: wood-panelled interiors, faded greens of a walled garden, the grey-gold sheen of Washington streets in late autumn, and a television glow that keeps coming back as the film's quiet centre. Its sound is sparse, with a gentle, unhurried score and long stretches where a clock, a footstep, or a television murmur is all you hear. The vibe is dry, wry and bemused, a deadpan comedy with a melancholy undertow, the sort of thing to sit with on a slow afternoon or a rainy weekend. Pacing is languid and deliberate, with comedy coming from stillness and misreadings rather than gags. Emotionally it stays detached and ambivalent, following a sheltered, childlike man whose plain, literal responses to the world are taken as wisdom by the powerful people around him, and the film watches that misunderstanding with gentle, baffled amusement. Intensity is very low: no violence, no gore, only mild sexual innuendo and a few tense social moments. It suits viewers who want a quiet, satirical, faintly strange comedy about politics, celebrity and how people project meaning onto blank faces.
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