Nobody’s Fool **** (1994, Paul Newman, Bruce Willis, Jessica Tandy) – Classic Movie Review 872

Writer-director Robert Benton’s small but perfectly formed 1994 film Nobody’s Fool landed Paul Newman with a deserved Best Actor Oscar nomination for his sterling turn as Sully Sullivan, an ageing small-town construction worker who has a last chance to sort out his life and his relations with his dysfunctional, busted-up family.

Beautifully handled by director Benton, this is a tasteful, discreet but honest and ultimately extremely moving little character drama, based on the novel by Richard Russo. Benton was also Oscar nominated, for Best Adapted Screenplay.

There are lovely star cameos from Melanie Griffith and Bruce Willis, as Newman’s beloved Toby Roebuck and her husband Carl, who don’t topple the delicate movie over with their star power. It was Jessica Tandy’s last film, aged 85, and she is very sweet indeed as Newman’s old mother whom he’s living with and looking after.

Philip Seymour Hoffman (as Officer Raymer) is one of the notable supporting players, who also include Dylan Walsh, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Gene Saks, Josef Sommer, Philip Bosco (as Judge Flatt), Catherine Dent, Alexander Goodwin, Carl John Matusovich, Jay Patterson, Jerry Mayer  and Elizabeth Wilson.

Beating Newman, Tom Hanks won the Best Actor Oscar at the 1995 Academy Awards for Forrest Gump.

Paul Newman died on September 26 2008, aged 83. He won the Best Actor Oscar for The Color of Money. Nobody’s Fool was his last Oscar nomination as Best Actor, though he was nominated as Best Supporting Actor for Road to Perdition (2002) in 2003.

At the end of 2014 the year he died, remembering Philip Seymour Hoffman. RIP.

Tragically, Hoffman died on February 2 2014, aged 46, from an apparent drug overdose  in his New York City apartment. Awarded a Best Actor Oscar for the 2005 film Capote, he checked into rehab in May 2013 for heroin use.

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© Derek Winnert 2013 Classic Movie Review 872

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